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THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
OF AN IDEA 


By | 
mows H. SULLIVAN 


With a Foreword by 
CLAUDE BRAGDON 


New YorK 
PRESS OF THE AMERICAN 
INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS, INC. 
1924 





New York 7 


‘ 








FOREWORD 


mous art does Louis Sullivan stand in need 
of an introduction, for he is eminent in his 
chosen profession. 

As an author, as well as an architect, in his build- 
ings and in his written words, his aim has been to de- 
clare certain truths, to publish certain principles, so 
vital, so fertile, so fundamental and necessitous that 
I mentally couple him with Whitman and Lincoln, 
however little he belongs in their category, or they 
in his. 

He is like them at least in the untainted quality of 
his Americanism, having Lincoln’s listening ear for the 
spiritual overtones amid the din of our democracy, and 
Whitman’s lusty faith in the ultimate emergence into 
brotherhood and beauty of the people of “‘these states.” 

Beyond this, doubtless, the similarity ceases, but 
the point I wish to make is that Sullivan is somewhat 
different from us others, refusing to be glamored by 
our pleasant illusions—and by “‘us others,”’ I mean ar- 
chitects academic, beaux-arty, medieval, stylistically 
pure and purely stylish, now so busily engaged, with 
such gusto and mutual admiration, in setting the Ameri- 
can scene. 

Louis Sullivan has the distinction of having been, per- 
haps, the first squarely to face the expressional problem 
of the steel-framed skyscraper and to deal with it 
honestly and logically. Later solutions, in so far as 


SD re: because architecture is so largely an anony- 


they are good, have been along the lines that he, by 
precept and example, first laid down. This, to the 
layman, needs a little explaining. ‘The academically 
educated architect of the generation which produced 
the skyscraper found something that refused to sub- 
mit itself to the canons and categories with which his 
mind had been filled: he could neither fit it into his 
mental frame, nor could he expand that frame to fit it. 
So he produced architectural monstrosities. 

Now along comes Louis Sullivan, fresh from Eu- 
rope, but unglamored by the light of its magnificent 
yesterdays. He held the conviction that no architec- 
tural dictum, or tradition, or superstition, or habit, 
should stand in the way of realizing an honest architec- 
ture, based on well-defined needs and useful purposes: 
the function determining the form, the form expressing 
the function. ‘To him the tallness of the skyscraper. 
was not an embarrassment, but an inspiration—the 
force of altitude must be in it; it must be a proud and 
soaring thing, without a dissenting line from bottom 
to top. Accordingly, flushed with a fine creative frenzy, 
he flung upward his piers and disposed his windows as 
necessity, not tradition, demanded, making the masonry 
appear what it had in fact become—a shell, a casing 
merely, the steel skeleton being sensed, so to speak, 
like bones beneath their layer of flesh. Then, over it 
all, he wove a web of beautiful ornament—flowers and 
frost, delicate as lace and strong as steel. 

His inexorable logic, resulting as it did in so many 
surprising simplifications and admirable economies, im- 
posed itself upon the minds even of architects averse 
to his philosophy and indifferent towards his work, 
with the result that the more obvious merits of our up- 
standing colossi of the market are traceable, however 
deviously, to Louis Sullivan’s influence. 


The purely structural and economic aspect of a 
building is necessarily more or less of a mystery to the 
man in the street; but he has usually an interested eye 
for ornament. ‘This accounts for the fact that Sullivan 
is known to the layman (insofar as he is known) as the 
creator of original and beautiful surface decoration. 
His Golden Doorway to the Transportation Building 
at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, in 1893, 
charmed the unsophisticated eye of the native son more 
than the hackneyed ornamental motifs employed in the 
buildings surrounding the Court of Honor. It charmed 
also the eyes of certain highly sophisticated visiting 
foreigners. Alert, in a new country, for any Newness, 
they found that quality almost nowhere save in Sulli- 
van’s designs, to which they accorded unhesitating and 
enthusiastic praise. 

That he should be thus known merely as an orna- 
mentalist seems deeply ironical, because he himself 
seriously recommended that we abandon the use of 
ornament in architecture until we had mastered the es- 
sentials of straightforward design. ‘This indicates that 
of all his gifts he holds the decorative one as least 
essential. 

With no disparagement to his achievements as archi- 
tect and designer I hold that Louis Sullivan makes his 
most powerful and lasting appeal as author and teacher; 
for though you will look in vain for any book of his in 
any library, he has nevertheless written and he has 
been read. Although his writings have appeared only 
in pamphlet form, and as contributions to journals of 
limited circulation and short life, they were of a kind 
to imprint themselves upon the mind of youth, ‘‘wax 
to receive and marble to retain.” His Kindergarten 
Chats, impatiently awaited, week by week, as they ap- 
peared in a trade journal long since vanished, hidden 


under draughting-boards until the exit of “‘the boss,” 
and then eagerly read, destroyed for many young men 
—TI was one of them—the world of ideas into which 
they had been educated, but only to create another and 
a better world of ideas in their stead. 

The Chats proved to be a vigorous, bitter, bludgeon- 
ing assault upon the then existing architectural order 
(is it different now, I wonder?), but they pointed out 
a way to freedom to any sincere young architectural 
talent stifling in the tainted air of our industrialism or 
bogged in the academic morass. Large, loose, discur- 
sive, a blend of the sublime and the ridiculous, as though 
Ariel had collaborated with Caliban, Kindergarten 
Chats remains in my memory as one of the most pro- 
vocative, amazing, amusing, anaes inspiring 
things that I have ever read. 

The Autobiography of an Idea I am not called upon 
to discuss, either critically or otherwise, this being an 
introduction, not of the book, but of the author, and 
of him not as a person, but as a personage. His per- 
sonality will inevitably reveal itself to the reader as he 
progresses, far more truly than could I, who look 
through other and older windows, possibly rose-colored 
and scribbled over with memories, admirations, grati- 
tudes. I am content to leave it thus, because I believe 
Louis Sullivan to be one able to endure the scrutiny 
made possible, made inevitable, by the autobiographical 
form—who might conceivably gain by it something 
which no appraisement of a friend and fellow crafts- 
man could give. 


CLAUDE BRAGDON. 


GEAPRTE Rel 


The Child 


NCE upon a time there was a village in New 
() England called South Reading. Here lived a 

little boy of five years. That is to say he nested 
with his grandparents on a miniature farm of twenty- 
four acres, a mile or so removed from the center of 
gravity and activity which was called Main Street. 
It was a main street of the day and generation, and so 
was the farm proper to its time and place. 

Eagerly the grandparents had for some time urged 
that the child come to them for a while; and after a 
light shower of mother tears—the father indifferent 
—consent was given and the child was taken on his 
way into the wilderness lying ten miles north of the 
city of Boston. The farm had been but recently ac- 
quired, and the child appeared, shortly thereafter, as 
a greedy parasite, to absorb that affection, that abun- 
dant warmth of heart which only Grandma and Grand- 
pa have the intuitive folly to bestow. In short they 
loved him, and kept him bodily clean. 

To the neighbors, he was merely another brat-nui- 
sance to run about and laugh and scream and fight and 
bawl with the others—all bent on joy and destruction. 
The peculiar kink in this little man’s brain, however, 
was this: he had no desire to destroy—except always 
his momentary mortal enemies. His bent was the 
other way. 

Now lest it appear that this child had come suddenly 
out of nothing into being at the age of five, we must 


[9] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


needs authenticate him by sketching his prior tumul- 
tuous life. He was born of woman in the usual way 
at 22 South Bennett Street, Boston, Mass., U. S. A., ~ 
on the third day of September, 1856. And, for the 
benefit of the exigent and meticulous, it may be added, 
on the authority of the young mother, that the event 
occurred on the second floor: day Tuesday, hour 10 
P. M., weight 10 pounds. The mother, at that date, 
had arrived at the age of 21 years, while the father 
would be 38 come Christmas. 

The long interval of passing years has made it clear 
that this pink monstrosity came into the world pos- 
sessed of a picture-ememory. He remembers, even now, 
certain cradle indiscretions; and from that same cradle 
he recalls a dim vision of a ghostly lady in somber 
black, and veiled, entering through the open door and 
speaking in a voice strangely unlike the mellow tones of 
his nearby mother. He remembers that one night in 
mid-winter, he was lifted from his warm cozy refuge, 
bundled up and taken to the third floor. Grandpa was 
already there, scraping the heavy frost from one of 
the small square window panes; finally, after the ecsta- 
sies of Mama and the awed tones of Grandpa, the 
child was lifted up and held close to the pane to see 
what?—a long brilliant, cloud-like streak, which, he 
dimly fancied, must be unusual; but as it seemed to 
have no connection with the important concerns of his 
existence, he was glad to leave it to itself, whatever it 
was, and return to the warm spot from which he had 
been taken. This streak in the sky was Donati’s comet 
of 1858. 

Before going further into the doings of this two- 


[ 10 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


year-old, it may be well to give an outline of his 
mongrel origin. 

As to his father, Patrick Sullivan, no need for dis- 
cussion—he was Irish. As to the mother, Andrienne 
List Sullivan, she seemed French, but was not wholly 
so. She had the typical eyelids, expressive hazel eyes, 
an oval face, features mobile. She was a medium stat- 
ure, trimly built, highly emotional, and given to ecsta- 
sies of speech. But she also had parents: her father, 
Henri List, was straight German of the Hanoverian 
type—6 feet tall, well proportioned, erect carriage, and 
topped by a domical head, full, clean-shaven face, thick 
lips, small gray eyes, beetling brows and bottle-nose. 
He was of intellectual mold, and cynically amused at 
men, women, children and all else. Her mother, a 
miniature woman of great sweetness and gentle poise, 
was Swiss-French, born in Geneva—where also. her 
three children were born. But her long Florentine 
nose suggested, unmistakably, an Italian strain. Her 
maiden name was Anna Mattheus. Like a true mere 
de famille, she ruled the roost, as was the custom in 
French society of the Middle Class. Her mind was 
methodic, her affection all-embracing. 

Henri List was reticent as to his past, but the family 
gossip had it that as a young man he was educated 
for the Catholic priesthood, rebelled at the job and 
ran away from home. 

The intervening years between this hegira and his 
arrival in Geneva, Switzerland, are a blank. There 
seems to have been some lack of clearness as to his 
vocation in Geneva; was he a Professor of Greek in 
the University, or did he coach rich young English 


[11] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


gentlemen through their university course? In any 
event he was highly educated, and he prospered. It was 
further gossiped that, having met Anna Mattheus— 
considerably older than he—who kept a store filled 
with a sumptuous stock of choice linens and laces, he 
courted her. It was sneeringly said he married her for 
her money. At any rate, they were well to do, and 
lived in a marble house with large grounds called La 
Maison des Paquis. Were three children were born 
to them, in order of arrival: Andrienne, Jennie and 
Jules. The narrator has in his possession a small oval 
card with perforated edge, on the plain field of which 
is drawn with colored pencils, a park-like view, with 
house half-hidden among the trees. On the back, in 
the handwriting of her mother, is the notation ‘Terrace 
de la Maison des Paquis faites par Andrienne en 1849” 
—(that is at the age of 14). According also to family 
gossip, there seems to be no doubt that Henri List was 
tainted with cupidity. He speculated and finally lent 
ear to the wiles of a Jew. He ventured his all. ‘The 
enterprise strangely and suddenly lost its credit, and 
the house of List tottered and collapsed in irretrievable 
ruin. Anna List borrowed money of her relatives to 
take the family to America, to forget the past and start 
anew in a strange land. Little wonder that Grand- 
father was reticent. It required a span of years for 
the narrator to pick up little by little the thread of 
the story. 

As to Patrick Sullivan; he had no secrets, but his 
memory did not extend much back of his 12th year. 
He said his father was a landscape painter, a widower, 
and he an only child. That together they used to 


[ 12] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


visit the county fairs in Ireland. That at one of these 
fairs he lost his father in the crowd and never saw 
him again. Thus at the age of twelve he was thrown 
upon the world to make his way. With a curious 
little fiddle, he wandered barefoot about the country- 
side, to fiddle here and there for those who wished 
to dance; and of dancing there was plenty. Thus 
traveling he saw nearly all of Ireland. This wan- 
dering life must have covered a number of years. The 
period that emerges from the wander-period seems 
obscure in transition, but his attention must have fo- 
cused on dancing as an art. As to the grim determina- 
tion of his character, his pride and his ambition, there 
can be no doubt; but what chain of influences took 
him to London is not known. Arrived there, he placed 
himself under the tutelage of the best—most fashion- 
able—masters, and in due time set up an academy of 
his own. Not content with this advance, which was 
successful, he must needs reach the heights of his art, 
and in Paris, the center of fashion, took instruction 
of the leading masters. In those days dancing was a 
social art of grace, of deportment, and of personal 
carriage. It had many branches of development, from 
the simple polka to highly figurative formations, in 
social functions, upward to its highest and most poetic 
reach in the romantic classical ballet. It was an art 
of elegance that has passed with the days of elegance. 
Artificial it largely was, yet humanizing, and benef- 
icent. In such wise must the social value of the dance, 
of the dancing master, and the academy of a day long 
since past be visualized, to be understood in this day. 
This young Irishman had another grand passion. 


[13] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEZ 


To him the art of dancing was a fine art of symmetry, 
of grace, of rhythm; but parallel to this ran a hunger 
for Nature’s beauty. He must have been a pagan, this 
man, for in him Nature’s beauty, particularly in its 
more grandiose moods, inspired an ecstasy, a sort of 
waking trance, a glorious mystic worship. In this 
romantic quest, he had, through a series of years, footed 
it over a considerable part of Switzerland. 

It seems strange at first glance that these highly 
virile and sensitive powers should be embodied in one 
so unlovely in person. His medium size, his too-slop- 
ing shoulders, his excessive Irish face, his small repul- 
sive eyes—the eyes of a pig—of nondescript color 
and no flash, sunk into his head under rough brows, 
all seemed unpromising enough in themselves until it 
is remembered that behind that same mask resided the 
grim will, the instinctive ambition that had brought 
him, alone and unaided, out of a childhood of poverty. 

Naturally enough he had not found time to acquire 
an “‘education,”’ as it was then called and is still called. 
He, however, wrote and spoke English in a polite way, 
and had acquired an excruciating French. Hence by 
the standards of his time in England he was no gentle- 
man as that technical term went, but essentially a 
lackey, a flunkey or social parasite. Perhaps it was 
for this reason he revered book-learning and the 
learned. He knew no better. 

It is probable that, about this time, the lure of 
America, goal of the adventurous spirit, the great hos- 
pitable, open-armed land of equality and opportunity, 
had been acting on his imagination. This is surmise. 
The fact, of which there is documentary evidence, is 


[ 14 ] 


Peres lTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


this: that on the 22nd day of July, 1847, he took pas- 
sage at London for Boston in the good ship Unicorn 
of 550 tons register burthen. ‘This, in the eleventh 
year of the reign of Victoria; Louis Philippe nearing 
his political end; with revolution ripening in Germany; 
and the United States kindly relieving Mexico of its 
too heavy burden. And this, also, while a small pros- 
perous family in a small European city was awaiting, 
all unconscious, the call to join him in the same city 
of the same far away land; and that but eleven brief 
years lay between them all and the advent of a child 
to whose story we must now begin a return. For the 
finger of fate was tracing a line in the air that was to 
lead on and on until it reached a finger tracing a line 
now and here. 

Patrick Sullivan reached Boston in 1847, set up an 
academy and was successful. He always was success- 
ful. His probity was such that he could always com- 
mand desirable influence and respect. He was familiar 
with polite forms. Later on, probably in 1850, the 
Geneva family also reached Boston. Somehow they 
met. The young Irishman, keen through training in 
the hard school of experience and self discipline was 
always wide awake; and this is what happened; he met 
the young girl, Andrienne, in the conventional way, 
was attracted by her grace of manner, her interesting 
broken English, her skilled piano playing; paid his 
court to her, professed love for her; they became en- 
gaged, and on the 14th of August, 1852, they were 
married. What is more likely is this; that he heard 
her playing of Chopin, Beethoven, et al., with approval, 
for he was fond of music; that he asked her to substi- 


[15] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


tute dance music; that after the first few bars he was 
electrified—he had found a jewel without price. Her 
sense of rhythm, of sweep, of accent, of the dance- 
cadence with its reinforcements and languishments, the 
tempo rubato—was genius itself. He lost no time in 
marrying her as a business asset. She was lovable and 
he may have loved her. It is possible but hardly prob- 
able; for there is nothing in the record to show that 
he loved others, or that he loved himself. He was 
merely self-centered—not even cold. He was moder- 
ate of habit; drank a little wine, smoked an occasional 
cigar, and was an enthusiast regarding hygiene. The 
stage-setting augured well for the coming child. The 
stock was sound. All the tribe were black-haired. So 
he came to pay his visit in due time, as recorded, be- 
lieved by his mother to be an angel from Heaven, so 
great, so illusioning is the Mother-passion. But, as 
regarded from the view-point of the chronicler, he was 
not an angel from heaven. At the age of two he had 
developed temper, strong will, and obstinacy. He be- 
came at times a veritable howling dervish. He bawled, 
he shrieked, he blubbered, sobbed, whined and whim- 
pered. He seemed to be obsessed by fixed ideas. Once 
in a while, as time passed, there came periods of rela- 
tive calm within the pervading tempest, and now and 
then he was not wholly unlovable. A rising sun seemed 
to be dawning within him. He became interested in 
his bath, given daily in a movable tub. Grandma 
would allow none but herself to perform this rite, and 
as she sponged him down, he would sing to her some- 
thing about Marlbrouck s’en va-t'en guerre, or tell 
what this giant did, or that fairy. Life was beginning 


[ 16 | 


Pee 2ULTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


to break in upon him from outside. A continuous 
breaking in from the outside and breaking out from 
the inside was to shape his destiny. 

He loved to look out of the window; to see people 
moving to and fro. But it was when first he saw the 
street-cleaners at work that there upsprung a life- 
fascination,—the sight, the drama of things being 
done. South Bennett Street ran from. Washington 
Street to Harrison Avenue, a short block, but for him 
a large world. The street was paved with cobble 
stones; the sidewalks were of brick. He was there at 
the window when the work began. Came on the front 
rank; four men armed with huge watering cans painted 
red; these they swung in rhythm one-two, one-two. 
The thrill began, the child breathed hard. Then fol- 
lowed the second rank—four men with huge brooms 
made of switches; they also, two-fisted, swung one-two, 
one-two, shaping a windrow in the gutter. ‘Then 
came the glory of it all, the romantic, the utterly 
thrilling and befitting climax—an enormous, a won- 
derful speckled gray Normandy horse, drawing a 
heavy tip cart, and followed as a retinue by two men, 
one sweeping the windrows into hillocks, the other with 
shovel and with mighty faith, moving these mountains 
into the great chariot. ‘Thus appeared from Wash- 
ington Street, thus passed in orderly action, thus dis- 
appeared into Harrison Avenue the Pageant of Labor, 
leaving the child, alone, thrilled with a sort of alarm 
of discovery, held by an utter infatuation. He had 
missed nothing; he had noted every detail. He had 
seen it whole and seen it steady. It is a close surmise 
that what actually passed in the child’s mind, aside 


[17] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


from the romance, was a budding sense of orderly 
power. Indeed, the rhythm of it all! And then, to 
the wondering child, there began the dawn of a won- 
der-world. 

His mother often dandled him on her foot, holding 
his puny outstretched hands in hers, and in great glee 
and high spirits sang to him about Le bon roi Dago- 
bert, Le grand St. Elois, and other heroes of the 
nursery. He felt these tales to be true, especially 
when the high points and low points of knee action 
were reached in a rushing climax. But one evening 
his mother took him for a visit; and on the return 
walk he tired and wailed. ‘The mother raised him to 
her shoulder, and when the tears had dried he looked 
upward at the sky and beheld with delight the moon 
plowing its way through fleecy clouds. He called upon 
his mother to share in the joy. She too looked up- 
ward, yet told him that the moon was not plowing a 
path through the clouds, but that the clouds were driven 
by the wind across the face of the moon. This 
astounding statement he received as an affront to his 
common sense, and so stated. But the mother was 
adamant in her folly. He looked again skyward, to 
confirm himself. As by accident his eye fastened on 
the moon; the moon held steady and he was amazed 
to see the clouds go by. Then consciously he tried it 
on the clouds and the moon again plowed on. ‘This 
process he reversed and reversed until he felt sure, 
and then it was he confided to his weary mother sag- 
ging under the intolerable burden of him, that he had 
made a discovery! He felt a sense of mastery and 


pride. He, HE, had discovered this thing. In a 
[ 18 ] 


feet tT OBRIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


world rising larger, difficulties appeared, and this par- 
ticular thing was not quite what it seemed at first to 
be. But he had mastered it. That his mother knew 
all about it, had told him all about it, instantly faded; 
the child sank into sleep. The mother, weary unto 
death, reached her destination; she entered with her 
sleeping son while the clouds and the moon in the still- 
ness of early night went their serene way undisturbed 
by further mundane intervention. 

Ever at the window pane, he liked to watch the 
snow, falling gently in large moist flakes and, in the 
little gusts, swirling and piling here and there, gath- 
ering curiously in odd nooks, and crannies, gathering 
on the window panes across the street, gathering on 
his own window panes, mantling the trees in a loving 
way, building far out in a roll from the top of a neigh- 
bor house—and not breaking off (why did it not break 
off?). And the stillness, ‘the muffled stillness, the 
lovely stillness. He was not satisfied to glance, he 
must look long, very long and steadily, he must see 
things move, he must follow the story, he must him- 
self live the drama of dark things slowly changing into 
white things. It was all so real to him as he gazed 
through the window pane, alone and very quiet. And 
then when morning came, the hasty rattle and scoop 
and sip of the shovels, cleaning the sidewalks, heaping 
the snow in mountains in the street. Again the song 
of work, the song of action. 

About this time a strange thing happened. It is the 
mother’s story repeated many times in after years. 
It seems one afternoon she was at the piano playing a 
nocturne with the fervor and melancholy sweetness 


[19 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


that were her sometime mood. Lost in dreamland she 
played on and on, when of a sudden she seemed to hear 
a voice low-pitched like a sigh, a moan. She stopped, 
looked, listened; no one there. She seemed mistaken; 
then from under the very piano itself, came a true 
sob, a child sob and sigh. Why tell what happened? 
Her precious son in her arms pressed tight to her 
bosom; tears, tears, an ecstasy of tears, a turmoil of 
embraces, the flood gates open wide, a wonder, a joy, 
a happiness, an exultation, an exaltation supreme over 
all the world. The child did not understand. Why 
did he, unnoticed, enter the room; why secrete himself 
where he was found; why was he overcome and melted 
into lamentation? Had anyone else been playing, 
would he have thus responded? Had a new world 
begun to arise, this time a wonder-world within him- 
self? Had there been awakened a new power within 
this child of three,—a power arising from the foun- 
tainhead of all tears? 


FoLLy COVE 


The family had decided to spend the summer on 
Cape Ann. They settled in a farm house of the very 
old fashioned kind, at a tiny spot called Folly Cove. 
The farm was a fairly large one and spread out to 
the rock-bound coast. It had its weather-beaten 
orchards, its meadows and its fields, its barn and out- 
buildings, its barnyard with a well and bright tin bucket 
worked with a pulley and chain. There were also 
the farmer, a typical extra-nasal Yankee; the faded, 
shriveled, worn-out wife; the usual dozen or more 
children, and a farm hand. Also in the meadow was 
[ 20 ] 


Pepe AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


a well without a curb. Presently the child wanders 
into this meadow, picking the sparkling flowers, feel- 
ing the lush grass, glorying in the open. Quite inci- 
dentally in his floral march he walked into the well. 
It was rather deep, and amid his shrieks he felt that 
his blue flannel skirt seemed to float about him. His 
father and mother were away fishing; the farmer busy 
at a distance. Came the hired man on the run; a 
quick descent, a quick ascent of the boulder wall of 
the well, the child was saved. In the arms of the man 
he was hurried to the farm house and turned over to 
the women-folk. ‘The farm-man returned to his work. 
The children quickly gathered. The women-folk 
rapidly stripped the chilly child, rubbed him down with 
harsh towels, and stood him naked with back to the 
elow in the huge fireplace. ‘The children, all older 
than he, looked on curiously, pointed, giggled. For 
the first time he was aware of a vague sensitiveness. 
He felt, uncomfortably, that there was something in 
the air besides atmosphere. He turned aside. A new 
world was gestating in the, depths. 

Upon the return of the parents all was in turmoil 
again. Appalled thanks, gratitude, relief, amazement, 
the precious, the precious, and again the precious! 

The father, more sedate, bethought him it would be 
righteous should he hold early communion with the 
life-saver, the farm-man. They met. The father 
offered lucre in gratitude sincere enough. The offer 
was spurned. Would the farm-man, an American he- 
man, accept of gold for saving the life of an innocent 
child? He would not! Things looked bad. There 


was argument, persuasion, even supplication. Finally 
[21] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEZ 


as by an inspiration he was asked if he would not 
accept something that was not money. The farm-man 
replied that if the father insisted and would not other- 
wise be calmed, he would with pleasure accept from 
him, as a casual gift, a plug of chewing tobacco. Thus 
was the value of a man-child ascertained. 

In the course of his exploration, he came to the 
other well, the one in the barn yard with pulley, chain, 
and big bright tin bucket. He was curious, and began 
huge experiments. Somehow the bucket got loose 
from the hook, struck the water with a splash and 
began to fill. He leaned over the edge in alarm. 
What was to be done? The bucket began its swaying 
descent, glinting this way, darkening that way, became 
dusky and was gone. In its place arose from the well 
an accusation seeming to say “‘guilty,’’ and there arose 
within and without the child a new world, the world 
of accountability. 

He spent most of his time with his father; the bond 
’ of union was the love of the great out-of-doors. Too 
young to philosophize and search his soul to discover 
sin, he took all things for granted. It seemed natural 
to him that there should be flowers, grass, trees, cows, 
oxen, sunshine and rains, the great open sky, the solid 
earth underfoot, men, women, children, the great ocean 
and its rock-bound shore. All these he took at their 
face value—they all belonged to him. He would sit 
beside his father on a great boulder watching him fish 
with pole and line. He would remain patiently there, 
inspirited by the salt breeze, listening to the joyous 
song of the sea as the ground swells reared and dashed 
upon the rocks with a mighty shouting, and a roaring 


[ 22 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


recall, to form and break and form again. It seemed 
to lull him. It was mighty. It belonged to him. It 
was his sea. It was his father fishing. 

One day as he was sitting alone on the boulder his 
father swung into sight in a row boat, and pulled for 
the open sea. The child did not know about rowboats, 
he had not discovered them, he did not understand 
how they went. Suddenly father and boat dis- 
appeared, the child gave a shriek of alarm, then as 
suddenly man and boat re-appeared, to disappear again. 
The ground-swell running high, the breeze stiffening, 
the boat with the man grew smaller and smaller at 
each appearance; there was a flash each time. Smaller 
grew the boat until it became a speck, then it began to - 
grow bigger and bigger. ‘The child, dumbfounded, 
ran to meet his father, in wild excitement, at the land- 
ing. His father, very patient in such matters, explained 
it all as best he could, and the child listened eagerly, 
with some understanding. What was said must be 
true, because his father, who knew everything had 
said so. But what he knew, all of himself, and beyond 
the knowledge of others, was that the sea was a 
monster, a huge monster that would have swallowed 
up his father, like one of the giants he had told his 
grandmama about, if his father had not been such a big 
strong man. He felt this with terror and pride. Thus 
arose in prophecy the rim of another world, a world 
of strife and power, on the horizon verge of a greater 
sea. 

For the remainder of the summer, nothing of special 
import occurred. The family returned to the city. 

When all were settled, he was sent to the primary 


[ 23 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ANWDes 


school of that district. He reported to the family at 
the end of the first day that teacher had called him to 
the platform to lead the singing. What a dreary 
prison the primary school of that day must have been. 
His recollection of his stay there is but a gray blank. 
Not one bright spot to recall, not one stimulus to his 
imagination, not one happiness. ‘These he found only 
at home. He learned his letters, he followed the 
routine, that is all. Nor were there any especially 
memorable events at home until the matter of the farm 
came up and was discussed interminably. He had been 
merely enlarging his geographical boundaries, and ex- 
hausting the material. ‘The primary school had, for 
the moment, dulled his faculties, slackened his frank 
eagerness, ignored his abundant imagination, his native 
sympathy. Even the family influence could not wholly 
antidote this. The neighborhood was growing disrep- 
utable. Next came the farm. 


[ 24 | 


CHAPTER II 


“There was a child went forth every day.” 


W HITMAN 


HUS after traversing a long orbit inversely to 

the prehistoric of the family genealogy, and trac- 

ing, on the backward swing, the curve of a lit- 
tle one’s experience in contact with the outer world and 
his individual impulsive responses thereto, we again 
take the train for South Reading. 

Arriving at the station a man descends, asks direc- 
tions, and follows the first dirt road to the left, leading 
‘over an almost treeless flat, and heading for a some- 
what distant hill. Part way up the hill he notices a 
house on the right. Here lived a man named Whitte- 
more, who having lost a leg, proceeded in due consid- 
eration of the remaining one, to invent, perfect and 
manufacture a new type of crutch, which has remained 
the standard to this day. “he workshop stood some 
distance back of the house, just at the beginning of the 
pine woods that covered part of the hill. The road 
here takes a curve to the right, traverses the back of 
the hillside with a heavy growth of pines on the right 
ascension, and a neat valley to the left with scattering 
woods and meadow. The road then straightens, be- 
comes of easy grade, and begins to emerge from the 
wilderness, so to speak. An orchard comes into view 
on the left, a field of herds-grass on the smoothly 
rounded hilltop at the right. Straight ahead, running 
at the right angles and terminating the road thus far 
traversed, was the main road from South Reading to 


[25] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ANG 


Stoneham. ‘The land here was level for a moment or 
two. At the left-hand corner of the intersection stood 
a rather modern house, clap-boarded, painted white 
with green shutters, and in front of it on the Stoneham 
Road were two stately elms. Here lived the Tomp- 
sons. The person who made this trip had no sooner 
reached the intersection and made a mental note or 
two of the surroundings than he saw a middle-aged 
or elderly couple, quite near, slowly approaching from 
the left on the road running toward South Reading. 
They were leading between them a chubby child who 
was screaming at the top of his angry voice, crying 
savagely, declaring vindictively he would not go, he 
would not go to school. The traveler must have worn 
the tarnhelm of legend, for they saw him not. To our 
thinking he was a phantasm of years to come. ‘The 
child was absurdly dressed. Under an immense straw 
hat, curving broadly upward at the brim and tied on 
with a ribbon, appeared his upturned face, red, bloated, 
distorted; angry eyes, terribly bright, running with 
tears in a stream; a mouth hideously twisted out of 
shape. Below this raging hell was a sort of white 
jacket and a big bowtie. Below this, white pantalettes, 
gathered in at the ankle and more or less flounced or 
frizzled. These pantalettes were the source of his 
fear, of his rage and his protest. He had already on 
account of them, he said, been regularly insulted by 
the neighbors’ children who had formed a circle around 
him and danced, sneered, pointed the index of scorn, 
and made merry. Was that not enough? Must he 
now face a schoolful of tormentors? He would not 
go, he would not go! He bawled and screamed that 


[ 26 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


he would not go/ ‘The child was on the verge of 
hysterics; it seemed less agonizing to face death than 
ridicule. ‘The elders consulted quietly, turned back, 
the child still between them, and disappeared at the 
entrance-way of a house a hundred yards or so beyond 
the Tompsons on the Stoneham Road. Next:day, the 
child appeared in conventional garb. His name was 
Louis, or, as his Grandmother pronounced it, Louie. 
It was a joyous day for him, a sad day for her. For 
in her heart she knew that with the laying away of the 
pantalettes there was laid away a child—a child gone 
forever—a child soon to be but a sweet memory—a 
child soon to metamorphose into a_tousle-headed, 
freckled, more or less toothless, unclean selfish urchin 
in jeans; and that he would continue to grow bigger, 
stronger, rougher, and gradually grow away from her 
—ever more masculine, ever more selfish. But this 
apprehension, this heart’s foreboding was not to come 
wholly true, for she held his love—she held it to the 
end. The child was not an enfant terrible; he was, 
rather, an independent, isolated compound of fury, 
curiosity and tenderness. Subtle indeed were the cur- 
rents flowing and mingling within him, embryonic pas- 
‘sions arising and shaping, ambitions vaguely stirring; 
while his sharp eyes saw everything. Spring was on 
the wane. The birds were full-throated in glorification 
of the number of bugs and worms eaten, or the inten- 
sive discussion of domestic affairs. High up in one of 
the Tompson elms—the one to the east—hung the 
purse-like nest of the self-same golden orioles that came 
there year by year, while from a nearby meadow floated 
the tinkle of a solitary bob-o-link winging its way 


[27 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


rejoicing. The day was beauteous; full sunshine 
flooded and enfolded all. The child, after much 
thought—of its kind—suddenly announced he was 
ready. His curiosity had been insidiously at work. He 
would see the school; he would meet new children; he 
had become eager; he would be a big boy in the world’s 
opinion. So, on this same cheerful morning, hand in 
hand with Grandma, who alone habitually assumed 
responsibilities, he began the pilgrimage of learning 
that hath no end. They took the dusty road that led 
eastward, directly toward the north end of the village. 
They leisurely mounted a gentle grade until the crest 


was reached. At this exact point, just behind the 


stone wall to the right of the road—marvel of marvels 
—stood a gigantic, solitary ash tree. On account of 
a certain chipmunk, various flowers, pebbles, and other 
things, the child had not noticed it during the approach. 
But of a sudden, there it stood, grand, overwhelming, 
with its immense trunk, its broad branches nearly 
sweeping the grass, its towering dome of dense dark 
green; opposite it, across the road was a farm house; 
back of it an open pasture. From the vantage of the 
road spread out a view of things below. The grand- 
mother was for going on. The child stood transfixed, 
appalled. A strange far-away storm, as of distant 
thundering, was arising within his wonderself. He 
had seen many trees, yes; but this tree—this tree! He 
trembled strangely, he wished to cry; with gentle scold- 
ing he was dragged away. From this point the road 
was bare and shaggy. Half way down, to the left, 
and set well back, was found not the little red school- 
house of romance, but a rather large white one, clap- 


[ 28 | 


oo - 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


boarded, green blinds, gabled, a bell, a well with force- 
pump, trampled playground, and so on. He was duly 
presented to the teacher. Her face and form, alas, 
like many another face and form, have passed into 
memory’s oblivion. All details settled, he was to come 
the next morning, which he did, after successfully pass- 
ing the magnet tree, while saluting it affectionately in 
a calmer mood. Day after day he passed the tree. 
It became his tree—his Great Friend. 

He was to spend many days at this barren hillside 
school. He became acquainted with the boys and girls 
there, for it was coeducational. What these children 
did during the recess hour would scandalize the wholly 
good. But to the casual sinner, scrutinizing the depths 
of his own past, reason might be found and a certain 
tolerance engendered whereby these vagaries of small 
animals, if not exactly condoned, might at least be 
minimized as the native output or by-product of inquisi- 
tiveness and emulation. ‘The child was as yet too 
young to fight. But according to the rules and regula- 
tions of the gang his time was but deferred, for each 
new boy must establish his fistic status. 

The school-room was large and bare with two 
wooden posts supporting the roof. The teacher sat 
at her desk on a raised platform at the wall opposite 
the entrance. The children sat at rows of desks (a 
row per grade) at right angles to the rear wall; in 
front of them an open space for recitation by class; 
blackboard on the wall and so forth. There were five 
grades in the single room. ‘Teacher sat at her desk, 
ruler in hand to rap with or admonish. All the chil- 
dren studied their lessons aloud, or mumbled them. The 


[ 29 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


room vibrated with a ceaseless hum, within which in- 
dividual voices could be heard. Everything was free 
and easy; discipline rare. ‘There was however a cer- 
tain order of procedure. Came time for a class to 
recite. ‘They flocked to the wall and stood in a row; 
neither foot nor head at first. Questions and answers 
concerning the lesson of the day. ‘Teacher’s questions 
specific; pupils’ answers must be definite, categorical. 
Teacher was mild, patient; the answers were some- 
times intelligent, more often hesitant, bashful, dull, or 
hopelessly stupid. Each answer was followed by a 
monotonous “‘go to the foot,” “go to the head;” and 
all the time the hum went on, the unceasing murmur, 
a thin piping voice here, a deeper one there, a rasping 
out yonder, as they pored over their primers, first 
readers, geographies, arithmetics; while now and again 
Teacher’s voice rose high, questioning the class on the 
rack, the children answering as best they could. This 
babel merged or deliquesced into a monotone; there 
seemed to be a diapason, resonant, thick, the conjoined 
utterance of many small souls trying to learn, enter- 
ing the path of knowledge that would prove short for 
most of them. The children were all barefoot and 
rather carelessly clad; notably so in the matter of omis- 
sions. One thing is certain and the rest is lies: “This 
school was of, for, and by the people. 

The child was given his proper place in the lowest 
grade, or class, or whatever it was called. He took 
hold rather blithely. He seemed to feel the importance 
of his entry into this new world, so different from 
home. Little by little he seemed to feel that he be- 
longed there; but he never succeeded in feeling that 


[30] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


the school belonged to him except as to its externals. 
Somehow he did not fit into the curriculum or the 
procedure. He was of a pronounced, independent na- 
ture. He quickly became listless as to his own lessons. 
He seemed to be nothing but a pair of eyes and ears 
not intended for books, but for the world little and 
big about him. In this immediate sense he was almost 
devoid of self-consciousness. His normal place was 
at the foot of his class. But one day he awakened 
to the fact that unawares he had become interested, 
not in books, but in procedure; said procedure consist- 
ing in the oral examinations and recitations of the 
grades above his own, as they, in accordance with the 
arrangement of the school-room, stood directly in 
front of him, drawn up in line, undergoing the routine 
torture. He began to notice their irregular mass-effect 
and their separate persons. He followed their for- 
tunes in going to the foot and going to the head. He 
transferred himself to them. He noticed, too, which 
girls were the prettiest and which boys were the gaw- 
kiest. He learned the names of all. He became solic- 
itous of their personal fortunes, in their struggle for 
knowledge or their attempts to escape it. For him, it 
became a sort of drama, a sort of stage performance, 
_and he began to note with growing interest what they 
said and what teacher said, which answers were correct, 
which were failures. Over and over he saw and heard 
this until he came to know the groundwork of what 
all the grades above him were struggling with. But 
as to his own lessons—Alas! Yet he followed the 
upper grades so intently that he became critical: What 
was this about the four men who built so many perches 


[31] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


of stone wall in three days, and two other men wno 
were to build some wall in six days? What did it 
amount to anyway? ‘The real question was where was 
the wall to be built? For whom was it to be built? 
What was his name? What were the names of the 
men who were building the wall, (for it was becoming 
a real wall)? Were they Irish or Scotch? Where 
did they get the stone to build the wall? Did they get 
it from the rough quarry across the road from the 
schoolhouse? Did they gather up boulders from the 
fields? Was not this matter of four men and two men 
irrelevant? The information was too sparse, too un- 
convincing. He could not place the wall, and what 
good was any wall he could not see? And thus he 
went on, unaffected by the abstract, concerned only 
with the concrete, the actual, the human. 

One evening when all were at home, a letter arrived 
addressed to Grandpa. He opened the envelope and 
read the letter aloud. It was from Teacher, and set 
forth with deep regret and concern that his grandson 
was a dull boy, that he was inattentive, would not 
study his lessons, was always at the foot of his class, 
but he was a nice boy. Could not Mr. List bring 
influence to bear to induce Louis to reform his ways? 
Would not a kindly word from him, concerning the 
need of education, have a moral effect? She had used 
all her powers of persuasion, and so forth and so on. 
At the end of the reading Grandpa dropped the letter 
on the floor, burst into volcanic laughter, roaring until 
the lid of the heater rattled, rocking forward and 
backward on his chair, clapping himself on the knee, 
in a series of subsiding outbursts, ending in a long 


[ 32 | 


Peres, OBIOGRAPHY. OF AN IDEA 


drawn spasmodic chuckle, expressive of his cynical 
sense of humor, his infinite contempt for those who 
had eyes and yet saw not. ‘To call his sharp-eyed 
grandson a dullard! Why, he said, one might as well 
call Sirius a flap-jack, and other joking words to that 
effect, for he was fond of teasing his grandson, whom 
he had so long watched out of the corner of his eye. But 
Grandma, more conservative, took the matter seriously. 
With her grandson standing at her knees, a bit abashed, 
a bit afraid, after giving her six propitiatory kisses, 
his arms about her neck and cheek to cheek, she found 
it, oh, so hard, to scold him. Instead she told him 
gently how necessary it was to acquire an education; 
how necessary to that end that little boys, particu- 
larly her own grandson, for the family’s pride, should 
attend industriously to lessons. Could he not do better, 
would he not do better? He said he could and would; 
and all was peace. 

Next day, at school, he pitched in, and the next 
day and the next; shutting out all else. Oh, it was 
so easy to head this class; so easy for one who knew 
what the upper grades knew, or thought they knew 
for a moment or perhaps a day. ‘They knew not that 
it was all, save a bare remnant, fated to fade away 
forever. ‘Tired of heading the class, which was so 
easy, he occasionally, and indeed with increasing fre- 
quency fell to zero, because of a lapse, because, per- 
haps, of a twitching squirrel in a tree nearby the 
window, or a beautiful white cloud curiously chang- 
ing shape as it slowly drifted through a beautiful blue 
sky. And what did it all amount to? What signi- 
fied it to be at the head of a row of dull-wits? He 


[ 33 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


was becoming arrogant. For Grandma’s sake, he kept 
on, after a fashion. He was becoming bored. 
Summer was waning. The third of September was 
at hand. Six candles in the cake announced an anni- 
versary. He was overjoyed: He was actually six. 
The winter of 1862-3 passed along with its usual 
train of winter sports and hardships. Louis joined 
heartily according to his height and weight in all the 
sports. Of hardships he knew nothing. What fun 
it was to be drawn on a sled over the snow by his 
Uncle Julius. To be drawn on the same sled over 
the dark sheer ice of the pond by Uncle on newly 
sharpened skates. What thrill of courage it required 
not to cry out as he shuddered at the darkness below, 
and wondered whether the pace were not too swift. 
But Uncle, some fifteen years older than he, was to 
him a big man; and what could not a big man do? 
So he had faith in Uncle, if not entire confidence, as 
they flew here and there among the gay crowd of 
skaters. How they went way to the end of the pond 
and then swung back past the ice houses where men 
were beginning to work! And later on how thrilled 
and stilled he was by the thunderous boom and tear 
of an ice crack ripping its way from shore to shore! 
And many such booms he heard on similar trips in 
zero weather. And then the men at work cutting 
ice! How exciting it was to watch men at work. They 
used large hand saws to cut ice into square blocks and 
there was one strange saw drawn by a horse. Then 
men with poles shoved and dragged the ice-blocks 
through the clear water to the bottom of the runway, 
and then it was hauled up the runway by a horse that 


[ 34 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


walked away with a rope that ran through a pulley 
and then back to the ice cake. ‘The ice seemed very 
thick and clear. 

And then came splendid snow-storms, decorating the 
trees, forming great drifts through which he struggled 
in exultation, every now and then stumbling and fall- 
ing with his face in the snow. How he rolled over and 
over in glee in the snow of a white world, a beauti- 
ful world even when the gray skies lowered. And why 
not? ad he not warm woolen mittens knitted by 
Grandma, and hood and stockings by the same faith- 
ful hands, and “artics’”? Was he not all bundled up? 

And the sleigh rides. Oh, the sleigh rides in the 
cutter with the horse looming so high, and the row of 
bells around the horse’s collar, jangling and tinkling in 
jerky time. And he so warm under the buffalo robe. 
And they met so many other sleighs in the village 
when they went to the post-office or the grocery store, 
and he noticed so many men walking about clad in 
buffalo coats. And he made snowballs and did all the 
minor incidentals. It was his first experience within 
the pulchritude of a winter in the open. His mother 
came frequently to see him and caress him. He could 
hardly understand why she loved him so; he had so 
many other personal interests and distractions. But 
he hailed her comings and deplored her departures. 

While his name was Louis, he had other names—in- 
teresting ones, too. He had not been christened or 
baptized. The question had called for a family coun- 
cil. The father, a nominal Free-mason, not sure 
whether he was a Catholic or an Orangeman or any- 
thing in particular, expressed no serious interest; he 


[35 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


would leave it to the rest. Grandpa, as usual, vented 
his view in scornful laughter. Grandma, a Menno- 
nite, was opposed to baptism. But Mother in her 
excited way was rampant. What! Would she permit 
any man to say aloud over the body of her pure and 
precious infant that he was born in sin and ask for 
sponsors? Never! ‘That settled it and they named 
him Louis Henri Sullivan. It has been declared and 
denied that the name was given in order to heap honors 
upon Napoleon III. Be that as it may. The name 
Henri, obviously, was to deify Grandpa. The Sullivan 
could not be helped. It was scorned by all but its 
owner. ‘They detested the Irish, whose peaceful pene- 
tration of Boston had made certain sections thereof 
turn green. Even his wife could not stand for it, much 
less for Patrick. So sometimes she gallicized the name; 
which wasn’t so bad, when she used it in the third 
person, nominative, singular. ‘Then she had an inspira- 
tion, an illumination one might say, and invented the 
word Tulive, whatever that may have meant, as a 
general cover-name, and thus secured a happy, life-long 
escape. But later on, say about the age of twelve, the 
scion asked his father about this name Sullivan, which 
seemed to coincide with shanty-Irish. So his father 
told him this tale: Long ago in Ireland, in the good 
fighting days, there were four tribes or clans of the 
O’Sullivans: The O’Sullivan-Moors, the O’Sullivan 
Macs, and two others. That We were descended from 
the O’Sullivan-Moors, and that all four tribes were 
descended from a Spanish marauder, who ravished the 
west Irish coast and settled there. His name it appears 
was O’Soulyevoyne or something like that, which, 


[ 36 | 


Petree Ue OBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


translated, meant, The Prince with One Eye. Now, 
however great was the glory of this pirate chief, his 
descendant, Louis Henri Sullivan O’Sullivan-Moore- 
O’Soulyevoyne, had this specific advantage over him 
of the high-seas. ‘The prince had but one eye that 
must have seen much; the youngster of six had two 
eyes that saw everything, without desire to plunder. 


These became part of that child who went forth 
every day, and who now goes, and will always go 
forth every day. 

And these become part of him or her that peruses 
them here —WHITMAN. 


[ 37 ] 


CHAPTER III 


And Then Came Spring! 


HE beauty of winter was fading as the thaws 

began their work, patches of bare ground appear- 

ing, patches of deep snow remaining in the gul- 
lies, remnants of drifts. ach day the scene became 
more desolate; mud and slush everywhere. But the 
child was not downhearted. Any kind of weather 
suited him, or rather he suited himself to any kind of 
weather, for he was adaptable by nature—which meant 
in this case abundant glowing health. 

The hounds of spring may have been on winter’s 
traces; he knew nothing about that. His immediate 
interests lay in the rivulets which emerged at the lower 
end of the gully drifts. He wished to know just where 
these rivulets started. So he shoveled off the snow 
and broke off the underlying decaying ice until the 
desired point of information was reached. Then he 
would go immediately to another drift, and operate 
on that to see if the result tallied with the first. ‘his 
work completely absorbed him. It gave him new and 
exciting sensations. Then, too, he would tramp over 
the sodden stubble of the fields, and plow along the 
muddy roads. He would hunt about eagerly to find 
by actual test which places were the soggiest, and just 
where the mud was deepest and stickiest. Then came 
rains upon rains. ‘The snow vanished. Earth, fields, 
trees: All was bare. The child took this for granted. 

He did not know, he did not suspect, because of 
the city life he had led, that out of this commonplace 


[ 38 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


bare earth—indeed now hidden within it—was to arise 
a spectacle of entrancing beauty. ‘The rains became 
showers, occasionally sparkling in the sunshine. ‘he 
winds became mild breezes. ‘There settled over all a 
calm, a peace, an atmospheric sense that caressed and 
encouraged. And thus came spring. ‘The grass ap- 
peared as a delicate deepening influence of green. Did 
not the child soon find the earliest pussy-willows, the 
first crocuses in the garden? Did he not note the deli- 
cate filigree appearing as a mist on tree and shrub, and 
the tiny wild plants peeping through the damp leaves 
of autumn in his favorite woods? Did he not really 
see things moving? Was not the filigree becoming 
denser and more colorful? Was not the grass actually 
growing, and the tiny plants rising higher? Was not 
the garden becoming a stirring thing like the rest? 
The outburst of bloom upon peach tree, cherry and 
plum, evoked an equal outburst of ecstasy and acclaim, 
an equal joy of living. Was not something moving, 
were not all things moving as in a parade, a pageant? 
Was not the sunshine warm and glowing? MHad not 
the splendor come upon him as upon one unprepared? 
He heard the murmur of honey-bees, saw them bur- 
rowing into flowers, fussily seeking something and then 
away; and the deep droning of the bumble-bee, the 
chirping of many insects, the croaking of crows, as in 
a flock so black, they flew heavily by, and the varied 
songs of many birds; riotously shaping, all, on one 
great tune with bees, insects, flowers and trees. Were 
not things moving? Was not something moving with 
great power? Was there to be no end to the sweet, 
clamorous joy of all living things, himself the center 


[ 39 J 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


of all? Could he stand it any longer? Then of a 
sudden the apple orchards sang aloud! What made 
them thus burst forth? Was it that same power, 
silent amidst the clamor? Was it a something serene, 
sweet, loving, caressing, that seemed to awaken, to 
persuade, to urge; yea, to lure on to frenzy, to utmost 
exaltation, himself and the world about him, the new, 
the marvelous world of springtime in the open—a 
world that became a part of this child that went forth 
every day, a world befitting him and destined to abide 
with him through all his days? Oh, how glorious were 
the orchards in full bloom! What mountains of blos- 
soms! What wide-flung spread of enravishing splen- 
dor! ‘The child became overstrung. Yet his heart 
found relief from suffocation in his running about, his 
loud shouts of glorification and of awe, his innumer- — 
able running-returns to the house to say breathlessly, 
‘Come Grandmama! Come see! Come see!’ He 
wished to share his joy with all. These wonder-or- 
chards were his, the fields, the woods, the birds were 
his; the sky, the sun, the clouds were his; they were 
his friends, and to this beauteous world he gave him- 
self. For how could he know, that far, far from this 
scene of love, of pride and joy, men were slaughtering 
each other every day in tens, in hundreds and in thou- 
sands? ‘True, at the appointed hour, he had run about 
the house shouting “Fort Donelson’s taken! Fort 
Donelson’s taken !’’ and equally true he had made mon- 
itors out of a bit of lath and the bung of a flour barrel, 
and with greater difficulties a Merrimac. He had 
sailed them in a wash-tub filled with water. Further, 
he had listened to some talk about the war between the 


[ 40 | 


PereauUtOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


North and the South. He heard some talk about 
“Rebels” and “Yanks.” Yet it was all vague, and 
distant beyond his hills. It was all indistinct. He 
knew nothing about war—he does now. 

Spring passed slowly on, things were surely moving. 
The petals had fallen, and tiny round things appeared 
in their places. Trees were coming to full foliage, 
their branches swaying, leaves fluttering in the breeze. 
Plowing, harrowing and seeding were over. He had 
been given a tiny patch in the main garden to be all 
his own, and with toy tools he worked the soil and 
planted flower seeds. He became impatient when cer- 
tain nasturtium seeds failed to show above the surface, 
so he dug them up with his fingers, only to be astonished 
that they had really put forth roots. He pressed them 
back into the earth. To his sorrow that was the end 
of them. For a first attempt however he did pretty 
well. 

He learned little by little. He was now abundantly 
freckled, and in a measure toothless. His heavy thatch 
of black hair seemed to have known no brush. His 
hands were soiled, his clothes were dirty. Hatless, 
barefooted, his short pants rolled above his knees, and 
unkempt with activity, he was effectively masked as 
a son of the soil. To the passerby, he was a stout, 
stocky, miniature rufhan, let loose upon a helpless 
world. The more discerning noted two fine eyes, clear 
and bright. He saw all things just as they were. The 
time had not arrived for him to penetrate the surface. 
Exceedingly emotional—though unaware of it—the 
responses of his heart, the momentary fleeting trances, 
the sudden dreaming within a dream, perturbed him. 


[ 41 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ANG 


He wished to know about these; he wished to know 
what it was that enthralled him time after time. And 
in this he failed also; he could not interpret—few can. 
For that which perturbed him lay far deeper than his 
thoughts—a living mystic presence within the self-same 
open that was his. Per contra, he was generally re- 
garded as a practical little fellow who liked to work. 
Casually speaking the family was “without the pale.”’ 
The father had some nondescript notions, without 
form, and void. He was attracted by the artistic, 
especially by the painter’s art. He was well posted as 
to the names and works of contemporaries, and was a 
fairly good judge of landscape and still-life; also he 
admired a fine orchestra. He had tried church after 
church seeking what he wanted. What he wanted was 
not priest or preacher, but a thinker and orator. At 
last he found, in Theodore Parker, the satisfaction of 
his quest. Going alone, he attended regularly. From 
this it may be inferred that he leaned toward Unita- 
rianism. Nothing of the sort—he leaned toward ora- 
tory. If Unitarianism went with it, well and good. 
It was of no moment. He praised Parker highly. 

Mother had a fixed idea that existence was continu- 
ous in a series of expanding becomings, life after life, 
in a spiral ascending and ever ascending until perfec- 
tion should be reached in a bodiless state of bliss. 
This ethereal belief, opened to view the beauty and 
purity of her heart. Moreover, she read with avidity 
Renan’s Vie de Jesu. 

Grandpa looked upon religion as a curious and amus- 
ing human weakness—as conclusive evidence of univer- 
sal stupidity. Grandma alone was devout. Quietly 


[42 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


she believed in her God; in the compassion of His Son, 
in the wondrous love He bore—a love freely given to 
the outcast—a love so great, so tender, so merciful, 
that for its sake he yielded up in agony His earthly be- 
ing, the supreme sacrifice, to the end that all men might 
be blessed thereby; that, as His mortality passed, His 
supernal love might be revealed to men throughout 
all time; that His divine being ascended through the 
firmament to join the Father in Glory on the throne 
of Heaven. These things she firmly believed. They 
were the atmosphere of her inner life, the incentive of 
her daily deeds. She believed in doctrine—and it may 
be in dogma. She held the scriptures of the Hebrews 
to be sacrosanct—as verily inspired of God. She did 
not seek to proselyte. She was satisfied to abide in 
her faith, undisturbed and undisturbing. Perhaps this 
is why her grandson loved her so. Innocent of creed, 
of doctrine and dogma, he loved her because she was 
good, he loved her because she was true, he loved her 
because to his adoring eyes she was beautiful. Such 
was Grandmama. 

Otherwise Grandmama was the responsible head of 
a family consisting of herself, her husband, her son 
and her grandson. She was methodical, orderly, knew 
the true meaning of thrift, entered every item promptly 
in the account books, struck the monthly balance, had 
a fine mind for figures, and withal she was prudently 
generous. Her main business was to give private les- 
sons in French to certain brahmins and their off-spring 
in that curious city called Boston. In her leisure mo- 
ments, she knitted, knitted, knitted; gloves, mittens, 
scarves, socks, stockings, shawls; she knitted in silk, 


[ 43 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN [Dea 


in wool, in cotton; she knitted with wooden needles 
and with steel needles; sometimes she used two needles, 
sometimes three. Frequently in night’s still hours, she 
read in her Bible. Her precise hour of retiring was 
always 1 A. M. She had her coffee served in bed, and 
arose precisely at 10 A. M. Grandpa’s hours were 
reverse. At or about 8 o'clock in the evening he would 
lay down his long-stemmed clay pipe, yawn, chirrup 
a bit, drag himself from his comfortable chair, kiss 
everyone goodnight and make his exit. His grandson, 
following soon after, passed the open door at the head 
of the stairs. He always looked in, and always saw 
grandpa stretched full length in bed, reading by the 
light of a student lamp some book on astronomy. The 
child did not intrude. He knew full well that however 
much Grandpa ridiculed so many things, he never 
poked fun at the solar system. In this domain, and 
the star-laden firmament, he lived his real life. This 
was his grand passion. All else was trivial. The 
vastness awed him; the brilliance inspired him; he 
kept close track of the movements of the planets. He 
read endlessly about the moon and the vast, fiery sun, 
and the earth’s spiral path. 

But it was in Autumn, when the full train of the 
Pleiades, the Hyades, Orion and Canis Major had 
cleared the horizon and stood forth in all their con- 
joined majestically-moving glory, that Grandpa went 
forth in the early hours of night to make vigils avith 
the stars, to venerate, to adore this panoply of con- 
stellations, to be wholly lost within the splendor of the 
sky. Here was the man—all else was husk. What 
communion he held within the stillness of night, with- 


[ 44 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


in his own stillest hour, no man shall know. Now 
and then he would, bit by bit, endeavor to impart a 
little of his knowledge. But he knew well enough 
his grandson was not of age. Still, the boy learned 
to recognize and name several of the constellations as 
well as some of the larger stars and planets. One 
evening they were walking together along the garden 
path. The crescent moon was smiling just above the 
tree-tops to the westward. ‘They had been silent, thus 
far, when Grandpa of a sudden asked, ‘‘Louis, have 
you ever seen the penumbra of the moon?” When 
the meaning of penumbra had been asked and an- 
-swered, when the child had grasped the idea that it 
was the rest of the moon next to the crescent, he said, 
“Yes, Grandpa, I see it.” 

“What is it like?” 

“Tt is curved at the edge and flat the rest of the 
way. It is pale blue, like a fog. It is beautiful.” 

“Ah!” exclaimed Grandpa, “how I envy your young 
eyes! I have never seen it. I have tried with opera 
glasses, but still could not see it. It must be wonder- 
ful—and I shall never see it. Ah, my dear boy, little 
do you know what treasures your sharp eyes may bring 
to you. You see things that I cannot see and shall 
never see. When you are older you will know what 
I mean.”’ 

The child was startled. He did not know his Grand- 
pa was near-sighted. True, he had noticed that when 
Grandpa read in bed, he held the book very close to 
his eyes. He had noticed that some people wore spec- 
tacles, that his Grandma wore spectacles in the evening. 
But Grandpa didn’t wear spectacles at all. Why then 


[45 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


could he not see the penumbra of the moon? It was 
all strange, very strange to him; it was anything but 
strange to Grandpa—it was a sorrow. To that eager 
mind, burdened with reluctant eyes, it was a calamity 
that he could not see and would never see the penum- 
bra of the moon. 

Grandma on the other hand was not imaginative. 
In place of this divine power she had well-defined, 
solidly settled ideas concerning decorum, breeding, 
formal and informal social intercourse, and a certain 
consciousness that Mrs. Grundy resided as definitely in 
South Reading as elsewhere. Upon her arrival there, 
one of her first activities was to seek out a church, 
attendance upon which would at one and the same 
time insure to her unquestioned respectability, and, as 
nearly as possible, coincide with her individual views of 
doctrine. Indeed Grandmama was conservative of the 
social order of her day. She seemed oblivious to 
hypocrisy and cant. She was devoid of them. In this 
instance, she differed diametrically with her daughter 
Andrienne, who railed bitterly at that cloak of re- 
spectability which to her view camouflaged the sins of 
the world. Candor and sincerity were her ideals of 
character and conduct. There was but limited choice 
'in the village and Grandmama soon fixed upon the 
Baptist Church as her selection. She began regular 
attendance. The child had now reached the age at 
which she deemed it proper that he, also, should at- 
tend divine service. Thus another new world was to 
arise above the limited horizon of his experience. 

Among the treasures of barn and pasture, there was 
a certain and only horse named Billy. He was an 


[ 46 ] 


Poe ete OBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


object at the time technically known as a “family 
horse—safe for any lady to drive.” Billy was a 
sallow plug, who, as a finality, had resigned himself 
to a life of servitude, but not of service. Within the 
barn was housed what was mentioned familiarly as 
the “carryall.” It was a family carriage, having an 
enclosed body. It was a neat solid aftair, well built, 
well finished and upholstered, and with good lines. It 
was of the essence of respectability, even as Billy was 
of the lower classes. Billy’s harness was all that could 
be desired, and on Sundays Billy was groomed to the 
extent of his limited adaptability to the exactions of 
high life. Billy, harness, and carryall, made a rather 
interesting combination, even though Billy, as fate 
would have it, was as a fly in an ointment. The com- 
bination, however, is explainable. Grandma was timid, 
or at least apprehensive, and very cautious. She wished 
to be sole guardian of her physical safety, to the extent, 
even, that she permitted no one but herself to drive. 
Her husband was too nearsighted and absent-minded, 
her son too reckless, her grandson, too young. Hence 
her determination to take matters into her own hands. 
The idea of a glossy, dignified, high-stepper to match 
the aristocratic carryall could therefore not be enter- 
tained by her. It involved risk, possibly disaster. So 
Billy was selected as a compromise between the desired 
tone and the much more desired security. That is, as 
a deletion of a certain, or uncertain percentage of vil- 
lage respectability, for South Reading was of ancient 
settlement. 

Grandma would not countenance a checkrein for 
Billy; she maintained that it was cruel. The normal 


[47] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY (OF ANE ee 


center of Billy’s head, in consequence, was nearer the 
earth he feebly loved than the heaven Grandma hoped 
to reach with Billy’s material aid. There was a whip, 
in its socket, to be sure, but Grandma would not strike 
a dumb beast. When Grandma wished to start, or, 
on frequent occasions, to accelerate Billy's pace—if 
such it might be called—she waved the lines with both 
hands and chirped encouragement—never becoming 
aggressive—and satisfied that she had a horse “‘safe 
for any lady to drive.” But just here appearances 
became deceptive; for Billy, soon after his transfer in 
exchange for legal tender, revealed a defect in char- 
acter. He was given to unlooked-for fits of insanity. 
From a turbid dodder, he would suddenly break into 
a runaway. ‘This was alarming; yet there seemed a 
method in the madness. Like a clock, with mainspring 
breaking, and the works rattling fiercely toward a 
silence soon reached, even so were Billy’s runaways. 
Their distance-limit seldom exceeded one hundred 
yards. So, after prudent observation of his antics, and 
with due allowance for the fact that he did not run 
away every time, Billy was reinstated as a family 
horse, safe for any lady to drive, provided she were 
familiar with his mannerisms. Such was now the case. 

Of a Sunday morning, fair to look upon, in early 
summer, all prepared and ready, Billy and carryall 
connected into a material totality, the family set forth, 
following the dusty road to the village, without mis- 
hap. Upon arrival at the church, a white-painted 
wooden structure in imitation of stone, pretentious, and 
ugly,—as if indoctrinated with sin,—so much talked 
about within—Billy was hitched to the general railing 


[ 48 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


and the family entered, after Louis had sufficiently 
patted Billy’s nose. Climbing a wide flight of stairs 
to the second floor, all entered a large, dim, barren 
room, and reached the family pew. Louis immediately 
felt a pang of disappointment. There was nothing 
here to recall an echo of the spring song he had shared 
in the open. He thought there should be. Looking 
about at the congregation, he was astonished at the 
array of solemn faces: Why solemn? And the whis- 
pering silence: Why whispering? What was to fol- 
low? What was to happen? He enquired, and was 
hushed. He awaited. ‘he service began; he followed 
it eagerly to the end, noting every detail. 

He greatly admired the way the minister shouted, 
waved his arms terrifically, pounded the big Bible mag- 
nificently, and then, with voice scarcely exceeding a 
whisper, pointed at the congregation in dire warning 
of what would surely befall them if they did not do 
so and so or believe such and such. WHe roared of 
Hell so horribly that the boy shivered and quaked. Of 
Heaven he spoke with hysterical sweetness—a mush 
of syrupy words. He had painted the same word- 
pictures year after year; worked himself to the same 
high pitches and depths. His listeners, now thrilled, 
relaxed, expanded, held these sermons, these prayers, 
these hymns as precious; for the man looming in the 
pulpit was of their world. He gave pith, point and 
skilled direction to those collective aspirations and 
fears, which otherwise would have lacked symmetry 
and power. The sermons invariably ended with a 
tirade against the Papists. ‘This epilogue appealed to 
all as a most satisfying finale. After the closing 


ieee 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF Ae 


words of benediction the congregation remained for a 
while outside the church, gathered in groups, the men 
swapping lies and horses, the women-folk exchanging 
idiosyncrasies. All declared their satisfaction with the 
sermon. ‘his was the routine. Then they went home. 

To the child, however, as a first violent experience, 
the total effect was one of confusion, perturbation, and 
perplexity. One particular point puzzled him most: 
Why did the minister, when he prayed, clasp his hands 
closely together and so continue to hold them? Why 
did he close his eyes? Why did he bow his head and 
at times turn sightless face upward toward the ceiling? 
Why did he speak in whining tones? Why was he 
now so familiar with God, and then so groveling? 
Why did he not shout his prayers as he had shouted 
and roared through his sermon? Why did he not 
stand erect with flashing eyes, wave his arms, clinch 
his fists and pound the big Bible, and walk first this 
way and then that way, and otherwise conduct himself 
like a man? He seemed afraid of something. What 
could it be? What was there to be afraid of? And 
then this matter of the Papists. Why so bitter, why 
so violent, why so cruel as to wish these people, who- 
ever they were, to be burned throughout all eternity 
in the flames of awful hell? And the minister had 
said he was sure they would be. The boy asked at 
home what Papists were. Grandma said they were 
Catholics. Grandpa said they were imbeciles. Then 
he asked what were Catholics, and Grandma said, 
simply, they were not Protestants. And what were 
Protestants? And Grandma said, as simply, but with 
a touch of detail, that they were not Catholics, to 


[ 50 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


which Grandpa added that they, also, were imbeciles. 
But at the end of the next sermon the minister ex- 
plained it all. He declared in his wrath that they, the 
Papists, were pagans, heathen, infidels, idolators, wor- 
shippers of saints, low beasts, vile savages, ignorant, 
depraved, the very scum and slime of earth whom God 
in his mercy had segregated from the elect, in this 
world, in order that he might damn them totally to 
Hell in the next. | 

The minister made it quite clear that no Papist could 
by any chance enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and 
equally clear that a good, strict Baptist could and 
surely would. As to other denominations, he felt du- 
bious, indeed plainly doubtful, almost certain. Still, 
he said, grace was infinite, and the wisdom of the 
Father beyond the grasp of mortal man. On the other 
hand, he acknowledged himself a sinner, and frequently 
proclaimed, as with a sort of pride, that his entire con- 
gregation, individually and collectively, were miserable 
sinners; and they agreed. He told them, moreover, 
the wages of sin was death. He told them also, with 
unction, of the bloody source whence came the wages 
of purity in redemption. The child appealed to Grand- 
pa, who said the minister was an idiot full of wind 
and nonsense. The child suffered. Nothing in this 
new world agreed with his own world. It was all 
upside down, all distorted, cruel and sugary. It was 
not like his beautiful springtime, it was not even like 
his beautiful winter. ‘There was no laughter, no joy 
as he knew these things. He appealed to Grandma, 
but his questions were too persistently direct, too em- 


[51] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


barrassing to her placidity. She explained perfunc- 
torily; he got no satisfaction there. 

He began to think perhaps Grandpa was right. 
After more sermons, and prayers, and denunciations, 
he began to feel distinctly that his world, his life, which 
he had frankly felt to be one, was being torn in two. 
Instinctively he revolted. _He would not have the 
beauty of life torn from him and destroyed. ‘These 
things he did not say; he felt them powerfully. A 
tragedy was approaching. He was about to lose what 
he loved, what he held precious in life; he was about 
to lose his own life as he knew or felt life. He re- 
belled. He lost confidence in the minister. He no longer 
believed what was said. More than that he soon dis- 
believed everything that was said. He was regaining” 
his freedom. ‘The services increasingly irritated him; 
he asked to be transferred to the Sunday School. He 
would at least see children there. The Old Testament 
amused and pleased him with its interesting stories. He 
could almost live them over. But when it came to the 
crucifixion he rebelled again in spirit, this time so ar- 
dently that it was thought prudent at home to release 
him from Sunday School and Church alike. His ru- 
mination now was to the effect that fortune might 
perhaps also separate him from the schoolhouse, stand: 
ing white and bare on the hillside. 


[ 52 | 


CHAPTER ITV 


A Vacation 


OUIS became moody. Day by day the hillside 
L, school and all its doings irked him ruthlessly. 
In wood, field and meadow, his friends the birds 

were free. Why should he remain within these walls 
imprisoned and sad? He was a child of sudden re- 
solves. On a morning early he went to the pantry. 
As he glanced over the shelves, his thoughts wandered 
to the pink and white smiling baker who delivered 
“Parker House rolls’ every so often, and, with a 
cheery word left thirteen for a dozen. “A baker’s 
dozen” he would say every time he drove up to the 
kitchen door; and then in a busy way inquire: “How’s 
all the folks? Guess I don’t need ask if this boy’s 
a sample.”’ Then he would make a quick step into his 
light wagon and away with a rattling start. The boy 
in the quiet pantry unbuttoned his blouse, as _ his 
thoughts went on: Not so at the school; Teacher was 
not always kind. Twice with a rattan she had whipped 
the palm of his right hand while he placed his free 
arm across his eyes and bent his head and cried. It 
did not hurt much, but Teacher said it hurt her more 
than it did him. She told all the class so. She said 
she must make an example by having him stand on 
the platform and she said she did it to “learn him to 
mind and pay attention’; that it was her moral duty 
to do so; that she could not fail in her moral duty 
even though it pained her; that she punished not in 
anger but in grief; and then she cried, her forehead 


[ 53 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


bowed between her hands, as she sat at her desk on 
the raised platform. He recalled that she had cried 
this way every time she had whipped a child, and she 
didn’t whip very often either; so he bore her no ill will; 
yet he wondered why he should be whipped at school 
when he was never whipped or punished at all, at 
home; and again came floating the thought of the 
dainty baker-man; nimble, pink-faced, blue twinkling 
eyes and jolly chuckle. Thus musing but intent he 
filled his blouse with rolls and doughnuts and cookies 
—and buttoned up. Also, he had, hidden in his bosom, 
a small tin cup, for he knew where he was going. He 
was preparing to answer the call of a wooded ravine 
through which wandered a noisy rivulet. He had seen 
it but once, while on a walk with Grandpa, but he 
marked it then as the favored spot in his imaginary 
world. Once found and marked for friendship, it 
often had called to him in his school—a distant call— 
he could not come. ‘This morning it called to him 
irrevocably and nearby. 

Without a word to any one he set forth, following 
the Stoneham Road westward until he reached the gate 
of a right of way leading northward. He climbed the 
padlocked gate, and, following the road, soon passed 
a long hillock to the left crowned with tall hardwood 
trees, then down grade, then upgrade to a crest where 
the road ended. He climbed the gate and in new 
freedom, lightly traversing the down slope, reached the 
depths of the promised land. One bright particular 
spot was his goal. It lay in the narrow bottom of the 
ravine just where the gurgling water passed hurriedly 
among field stones under tall arching oaks. Here was 


[54] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


the exact spot fora dam. He got immediately to work. 
He gathered the largest field stones he could handle, 
and small ones too. He had seen Scotchmen and 
Irishmen build farm walls and knew what to do. He 
was not strong enough to use a stone hammer if he 
had had one. So he got along without. He found 
a rusty remnant of a hoe, without a handle; with this 
he dug up some stiff earth. So with field stones, mud, 
twigs and grass he built his dam. It was a mighty 
work. 

He was lost to all else. The impounded waters 
were rising fast behind the wall, and leaking through 
here and there. He must work faster. Besides, the 
wall must lengthen as it grew higher, and it leaked 
more at the bottom. He had to plug up holes. At last 
child power and water power became unequal. Now 
was at hand the grand climax—the meaning of all this 
toil. A miniature lake had formed, the moment had 
arrived. With all his strength he tore out the upper 
center of the wall, stepped back quickly and screamed 
with delight, as the torrent started, and, with one great 
roar, tore through in huge flood, leaving his dam a 
wreck. What joy! He laughed and screamed. Was 
he proud? Had he not built the dam? Was he in 
high spirits? Had he not built this dam all by himself? 
Had he not planned in advance just what happened? 
Had he not worked as hard as he had seen big men 
work? Wasn't he a strong boy for his age? Could 
anything at school or at home compare with this? Ex- 
hausted with work and delight he lay stretched on his 
back, in the short grass, looking far up at the spreading 
branches, glimpsing bits of blue between the leaves, 


[55] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ZN WIDEa 


noting how these self-same leaves rustled softly, and 
twinkled in the sunshine. This rested him. ‘Then 
hunger sharply called. He had cached his Parker 
House rolls and doughnuts and cookies, and his tin 
cup, on a big boulder in the shade. The “hired girl,” 
Julia, had taught him to milk. Dipper in hand he 
went afield to hunt up a cow. All cows were his 
friends. Soon he had the dipper filled with warm 
fragrant milk—his delight. Then came the repast 
near the site of his triumph. ‘Then he loafed and in- 
vited his soul as was written by a big man about 
the time this proud hydraulic engineer was born. But 
he did not observe ‘‘a spear of summer grass’; he 
dreamed. Vague day dreams they were,—an arising 
sense, an emotion, a conviction; that united him in 
spirit with his idols,—with his big strong men who did 
wonderful things such as digging ditches, building 
walls, cutting down great trees, cutting with axes, 
and splitting with maul and wedge for cord wood, 
driving a span of great work-horses. He adored these 
men. He felt deeply drawn to them, and close to 
them. He had seen all these things done. When 
would he be big and strong too? Could he wait? Must 
he wait? And thus he dreamed for hours. The shad- 
ows began to deepen and lengthen; so, satisfied, with a 
splendid day of work and pondering, he reached home 
in time for supper. Grandma said the usual grace; all 
heads were bowed as she appealed to her Lord of love 
to give strength and encouragement and to bestow his 
blessing upon this small family in their daily lives and 
tasks and trials and to give abundantly of His divine 
strength unto all that loved and obeyed Him. But 


[ 56 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


the child’s thoughts were concrete and practical; paral- 
lel to the prayer but more locally concentrated. Huis 
Grandmama, in her appeal, spoke the beautiful old 
French with its liquid double-ell. Her voice soft and 
heartfelt meant peace on earth. He understood a 
little of it; he knew that the words Que Dieu nous 
bénit which sounded to him like one word: Kudgernoo- 
baynee, meant: May God bless us. He had no ob- 
jection to God as a higher member of the family; it 
was only the minister’s God, the God of Hell that 
he disliked and avoided. Nevertheless he wished the 
ceremony might be shorter—it would do just as well 
—for while Grandmama prayed, his mouth watered. 
He would have accepted prayer as a necessary evil were | 
it not for the reconciling thought that God seemed to 
be Grandmama’s big strong friend; and what Grand- 
mama loved he knew he ought to love too; even as he 
loved his own idols—his mighty men. 

The prayer done, a silver bell tinkled by Grand- 
mama and Julia appeared, a glowing Irish vision, bear- 
ing high stacks of her wonderful griddle-cakes, a 
pitcher of real syrup, and a—but why parade or parody 
a dreamer’s gluttony rising thus thrice daily like a 
Jinni of old within his nascent dream of power? After 
supper he visited his small garden in the large garden. 
It was more sizable than last year. Satisfying himself 
that the four o’clocks, nasturtiums, geraniums, mign- 
onettes, and the rest of the family were doing well, 
he trotted down the granite steps to the dirt road in 
front where he might practice at throwing stones—a 
sport strictly taboo in the fields, but permissible in 
the sterile pastures. Between his house and the Tyler 


[ 57] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


farm-house opposite, was quite an open space, con- 
taining, at a level considerably lower than the road, a 
small spring-fed pond. In this pond were colonized 
bullfrogs, mud-turtles, minnows and leeches; bulrushes 
grew at eachend. Stray cattle browsed about at times. 
This pond was one of his possessions. It didn’t make 
any difference if it were called Tyler’s Pond, it was 
his own just the same. Stone-throwing finished, he 
went to look things over and satisfy himself that 
everything was all right and as it should be. As he ap- 
proached, the host of frogs were beginning their eve- 
ning chant to the invisible King of all frogs; he waded 
in a bit; the clamor increased; then the bass volume 
became overtoned by the awakening sounds of tree 
toad, Katydid and cricket, while fireflies softly shone 
here and there. ‘These were his familiars. Then he 
found a glow-worm in the damp grass. As he held it 
in his hand he noticed with surprise that the surface 
of the pond was crimson: This was new to him. He 
waded a little ahead and was pleased to see the ripples 
turn silver and crimson as they moved away from him. 
He was pleased and somewhat perplexed. Somehow 
he looked straight ahead from where he stood in the 
water, and there right in the woods on Tompson’s 
knoll, he saw the setting sun, the trees silhouetting 
against it, and the lower sky aglow. He had seen 
many sunsets, but there was something peculiar about 
this sunset—he would speak to Grandpa. ‘The sun 
sank from sight; the western sky softened into gray, 
twilight deepened into gloaming as the child stood knee 
deep in the warm shallow water, lost in reverie so faint, 
so far, so near, so absorbing, so vibrant that the once 


[58] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


noisy chorus seemed a tranquil accompaniment to a 
melody that was of earth and sun in duo with his 
dream. He awoke! He must speak to Grandpa about 
the sun. 

Grandpa was willing, but careful. He well knew 
that a child’s mind was a tender thing. He was keenly 
observing, but said little. He quietly, even eagerly 
observed his grandson, as one might watch a precious 
plant growing of its own volition in a sheltered garden, 
but far was it from him to let the child suspect such 
a thing. : He had often laughed at the child’s out- 
rageous frankness. It infinitely amused him; but when 
it came to knowledge, he was cautious—dropping in- 
formation by crumbs. But this time, when his grand- 
son in eager child-words dramatized the sunset and 
climaxed all by a sudden antithesis, saying he had never 
seen the sunrise! How did the sun rise? Where did 
it rise? How did it rise? Would Grandpa tell him? 
Would Grandpa please tell him? Then Grandpa wide- 
eyed knew a mystic golden bell had struck the hour. 
He told the boy at once that the rising sun could not 
be seen from the house because Cowdrey’s hill shut off 
the view; that the sun truly arose far beyond this hill. 
That to see the sun rise one must go to the crest of the 
hill, whence one could see to the horizon. He used the 
word horizon boldly, as one throws down a card, and 
then with strategy of simple words, and easy similes 
he produced a sort of image for the child; difficult to 
do in a hilly country, and for the mind of one who had 
never viewed the open sea. Then he explained that 
the lay of the Jand westward of the house was not so 


[59 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ANGLE 


hilly as that to the east, therefore one could view the 
sunset to fairly good advantage. 

In his discourse, he was careful not to mention the 
revolution of the earth. He knew well enough the 
child was living in a world of the senses. “But Grand- 
pa, is the sunrise as beautiful as the sunset?” ‘Far 
more so, my child; it is of an epic grandeur; sunset 
is lyric, it is an elegy.”” ‘These words escaped Grand- 
pa in a momentary enthusiasm. He felt foolish, as he 
saw a small bright face turn blank. However, he 
patched up the “‘lyric’”’ and the “elegy” fairly well, but 
“epic”? was difficult. Had he but known of his grand- 
son’s big strong men,—how simple. Then Grandpa 
went on: ‘But you must know that in summer the 
sun rises very early, earlier than I; and I scarcely be- 
lieve my young astronomer will get out of his comfort- 
able bed long before daylight, just to see the sun rise 
out of his bed,’’ and Grandpa chuckled. “Yes, I will, 
Graridpa, yes, I will’ —and he slipped from his Grand- 
father’s knee to arouse the somnolent cat, and shape 
his plans for tomorrow. 

Restless through the night, he arose at twilight, 
made ready quickly, and passed up the road leading to 
the great ash tree whose companionship he ever sought 
on high occasions. Here, under the wondrous tree— 
and with Cowdrey’s farmhouse resting silently across 
the way—here in stillness of oncoming dawn punctured 
here and there by a bird’s early chirp, and chanticleer’s 
high herald call heard near and far, raucous, faint, and 
ever fainter far away; the few remaining stars serene 
within the dome of pale passing night, he stood, gazing 
wistfully over the valley toward a far away range of 
[ 60 | 


/ | 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


dark blue drowsy hills, as the pallid eastern sky, soon 
tremulous with a pink suffusion, gave way before a 
glow deepening into radiant crimson, like a vanguard 
of fire—as the top of the sun emerging from behind the 
hills, its slow-revealing disc reaching full form, as- 
cended, fiery, imperious and passionate, to confront 
him. Chilled and spellbound, he in turn became im- 
passioned with splendor and awe, with wonder and he 
knew not what, as the great red orb, floating clear of 
the hilltops overwhelmed him, flooded the land; and in 
white dazzling splendor awakened the world to its 
work, to its hopes, to its sorrows, and to its dreams. 
Surely the child, sole witness beneath his great ash 
tree, his wonder-guardian and firm friend sharing with 
him in its stately way as indeed did all the land and 
sky and living things of the open—the militant splen- 
dor of sunrise—the breaking of night’s dam—the tor- 
rent and foam of far-spreading day—surely this child 
that went forth every day became part of sunrise even 
as this sunrise became forevermore part of him. The 
resounding power of the voice of the Lord of the sky 
and earth found in him a jubilant answer—an awaken- 
ing world within, now aroused from its twilight dream, 
its lyric setting sun, its elegy of the gloaming. ‘The 
great world was alive to action. Men resumed the 
toil of countless ages; the child, illumined, lost in an 
epic vision, came slowly to a consciousness of his own 
small self, and the normal doings of his own small 
day. | 

He made a long detour through the solemn pine 
woods near Whittemore’s, crossed the road there, de- 
scended into the small valley, followed it to and 


[ 61] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


through a lumpy bog where skunk-cabbages grew and 
their synonyms wandered, scaled a low wall, followed 
a rivulet that traced from the considerable spring in 
the hollow of his own pasture, sat there watching a 
small frog, fell asleep, woke up, followed the hollow 
to the pasture’s high ground, turned into the walled 
road leading to the barn, stopped at the pump in the 
kitchen yard—and was late to breakfast. Grandpa 
looked at him quizzically, but said nothing—he knew 
what the imp had been up to—he had heard him leave 
the house and had hastily donned gown and slippers, 
to watch his grandson disappear up the road to sun- 
rise land. Julia was furious in rich brogue concerning 
punctuality, and the child, usually so naively communi- 
cative, said not a word to anyone about his adventure 
—it seemed to have happened for himself alone. 
Grandpa, amused, amazed and disturbed by this freak 
of his grandson, feared precocity—in much the manner 
that academically trained men are apt to fear mani- 
festations of instinct. 

The only thing that reassured him was the fact that 
his grandson, between spells, was as ridiculously prac- 
tical. As a matter of fact Louis was living almost 
wholly in the world of instinct. Whatever there was 
of intellect consisted in keen accuracy of observation, 
and lively interest in all constructive affairs. Without 
reflection he admired work. To see men at work, and 
himself to work, especially if he could participate, was 
his childish joy. With never a serious illness, most 
carefully reared as to his diet and early hours, he was 
sound. Though he was his grandparents’ pet, disparity 
in age, occupation and thought left him much to him- 


[ 62 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


self and he did mostly as he pleased. What marked 
him apart and comforted his elders was an entire ab- 
sence in him of destructive tendency. ‘Therefore they 
allowed him the utmost freedom to go and come and 
do. This morning, breakfast out of the way, and 
Julia also, he went at once to his garden. His quick 
eye detected a fallen nasturtium; with his finger he dug 
up the offending cut-worm. How could a cut-worm 
do so shocking a thing? Had he not reared all these 
cherished beauties from the very seed? Had he not 
watched them growing, day by day, from infancy to 
blossom-time—putting forth tender leaf after leaf, and 
unfolding their tiny buds into lovely flowers? Had 
he not watered them and weeded? How often had 
he wondered at what made them grow. How often, 
on hands and knees—close up—had he peered and 
gazed long, hungrily, minutely at them one by one, 
absorbed in their translucent intimacy; indeed wor- 
shipped them in friendship until he seemed to feel them 
grow; that they were of his world and yet not of his 
world; that they seemed to live their own lives apart 
from his life. But he never said a word of this to 
Grandpa or to Grandma—They might not understand 
—and Grandpa might laugh. 

After further careful inspection, he left his garden 
friends for the day; and equipped as before, made his 
way to the ravine with its sturdy rivulet and the 
wreckage of adam. But this he judged was not dam- 
building day. He had not seen the full spread of his 
domain. He must explore. So saying, he followed 
the rivulet eastward out of the heavily wooded ravine, 
into a broad field of meadow grass where the small 


[ 63 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


clear stream now flowed—in tranquillity winding its 
way. As he lifted his eyes from its course, there, 
solitary in the meadow, stood the most beautiful tree 
of all. He knew it at once for an elm; but such tall 
slender grace he had never seen. Its broad slim fronds 
spreading so high and descending in lovely curves en- 
tranced him. He compared it with the two Tompson 
elms. They were tall and spreading but stiff and 
sturdy. Now he knew why he had never adopted them: 
—they were pruned from the ground way up to the 
big strong branches, while this lovely sister of the 
meadow, beneath her branching plume, put forth from 
her slender trunk delicate frothy branchlets reaching 
almost to the meadow grass. Her beauty was incom- 
parable. 

Then he thought of his great ash tree. How dif- 
ferent it was—so grand, so brooding, so watchful on 
the crest of the hill; and at times, he firmly believed 
so paternal—so big-brotherly. But the lovely elm was 
his infatuation—he had adopted her at first sight, and 
still gazed at her with a sweetness of soul he had 
never known. He became infiltrated, suffused, inspired 
with the fateful sense of beauty. He melted for an 
instant into a nameless dream, wherein he saw he was 
sufficient unto herself, that like his garden plants 
she lived a life of her own, apart from his life. Yet 
they both lived in the same big world—they both, for 
the moment, stood in the same green field. Was there 
nothing in common? Did she not know he was there? 

Then he awoke!—he came to his senses, and turned 
to the practical business of hunting wild strawberries 
in the meadow grass. His dream had flitted by like 


[ 64 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


a bird of passage. He looked upon her sanely now. 
She was still uniquely beautiful, he thought, in free 
admiration. So he had two trees now—all his own, 
and powerfully prized. It was all agreed. Then he 
moved further north to a dense mass of rather tall 
pines. He pushed in some distance, saw a crow’s nest 
overhead, climbed painfully up to it, had barely looked 
in when came a horrible cawing; angry crows came sud- 
denly from everywhere, bent on his destruction. Amid 
a fierce clamor, he descended to safety and then and 
there fixed those gloomy pines as the eastern boun- 
dary of his domain. He explored until he found in 
another field, on slightly higher ground, the deep clear 
wellspring from which the rivulet flowed. Thence he 


- followed its windings, wading as he went. Grasshop- 


pers in alarm hopped foolishly into the stream and 
floated along; now and then a small frog jumped the 
other way for safety. There were a few strawberries 
peeping from the grass along the banks; the channel 
was cutting deeper into the meadow and held more 
water; as he rounded a long curve he became aware 
of a great presence near him; it was his elm; he craned 
his neck to look at the branches way up in the sky, but 
his interest was centered in his new friend the rivulet; 
he had not room for both just now. The little stream 
began to ripple and sing sweetly to the child all alone 
in the meadow in the full sunshine—all alone; with 
plenty of company. Then the rivulet began to hurry 
and gurgle. Louis scaled the fence quickly to see the 
water descend all at once in a beautiful cascade of 
about his own height. After this, noisily foaming, it 
poured among the boulders to the lower level where 


[ 65 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


he had built the dam, and, as he knew, moved on to 
the marsh. 

He had reached his sanctuary in the shady grove, 
and sat a while on the lower or northern bank, to watch 
the squirrels. It seemed so funny to see a gray squirrel 
run head first down a tall tree, sit up straight in the 
grass, frisk his tail, wag his head, scamper to the next 
tree, run up and out to the end of a branch and 
jump from that to a branch of the next tree. He 
laughed gleefully at these antics. Meanwhile came 
from the undergrowth the note of the brown thrush, 
and from above various twitterings, chirpings, and dis- 
tant floating meadow songs. It was now time to estab- 
lish the northern boundary. The north bank of the 
ravine sloped rather gently upward, and as it emerged 
from the grove it rounded and flattened into a lumpy 
pasture, with many boulders large and small, and 
plants of mullein scattered over its surface. He must 
include this pasture because here was the milk supply, 
and besides, the pasture was green. All along the 
north border of it stood a dense growth of young 
pines which he found impenetrable and repellant, so he 
fixed his northern boundary resolutely there. As to the 
southern boundary he was in some doubt. It should, 
properly, be located a little way south of the crest of 
the ravine where the grove ended. He mounted the 
height and stood at the edges of a sterile stony sun- 
burned pasture—no trees, no cows; nothing but mul- 
leins. This would not do. Yet he yearningly gazed 
beyond it to the long Tompson hillock crowned with 
beautiful lofty hard wood trees running parallel to the 
ravine. He wished this grove to be his, but could not 


[ 66 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


accept the miserable pasture. He thought hard,—and 
solved his problem this way: He would fix the south 
boundary at the crest of the ravine, and would annex 
the Tompson Grove as an outpost. The boundary of 
the meadow he had already fixed, much farther south 
than the ravine, at a cross fence near the spring, where 
the meadow ended and a cultivated field began. He 
contemplated for a while, and saw that all thus far 
was good. 

Now for the marsh at which he had cast covetous 
eyes as he, yesterday, peered under the lower branches 
of his grove as through a portal. His expectations were 
far exceeded by the revelation. It was a lovely marsh, 
shaped like an oval, enshrined by the diminishing trees 
of his grove and a margin of heavy shrubbery all 

around. In the near background beyond the far end 
of the marsh were scattering swamp pines and cedars 
standing very straight and tapering to a point; they 
were welcome to him as they stood on guard behind the 
dense thicket. But the marsh itself—how beautiful— 
covered with water half-knee deep, filled with groups 
of tall bulrushes, of reeds, of blue flag, and slender 
grasses; and bright flowers here and there along the 
wavering edge. What joy to wade and wade, length- 
wise and crosswise, pulling up a flag now and again and 
stripping it to reach the edible core; following the 
margin to seek out hidden flowers. It was too much; 
too much at one time for one small boy. And then, 
in mingled affection and gratitude he established as 
western boundary a vague semicircle of deep green 
holding in its heart a marsh—his marsh without price. 
Slowly he returned to the dam-site to think it all over. 


[ 67 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN Ipea 


Now was the work done. The boundaries of his do- 
main established. The domain his very own. His 
breast swelled with pride. It was all his. No other 
boy should ever enter those lovely precincts. No other 
boy could understand. Besides, he loved solitude as 
he loved activity, and the open. 

Thus an entire month sped by as he reigned supreme. 
Not a soul came to disturb him: Rabbits, squirrels, 
birds and snakes were company enough. When he 
wished to play with other boys he went to them and 
joined in their games. While his heart was fixed in 
one spot, he made many tours of exploration; he called 
on many farmers and shoemakers. He even went so 
far one day as to enter the stove foundry beside the 
tracks, near the depot. He went frankly to a work- 
man, watched him a while and told the man he liked 
to see him work. The moulder, much amused, said he 
would show him how it was all done. Louis spent 
the entire afternoon there; the moulder carefully ex- 
plained to him every large and minute procedure. The 
child was amazed; a new world had opened to him 
—the world of handicraft, the vestibule of the great 
world of art that he one day was to enter and ex- 
plore. He went away holding this moulderman in 
special honor, although he was not very big nor very 
strong. He even visited the rattan works but did 
not like the dust and noise. He saw nothing but a 
long slender cane coming out of a machine. 

One day he saw a man in a wagon. The wagon 
was going without a horse. Also he visited a shoe- 
maker named Boardman who lived near his home and 
whom he knew well; a swarthy little man, with black 


[ 68 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


beard, black beady eyes, who both worked and chewed 
tobacco furiously. ‘There he learned every detail of 
making pegged and sewed shoes; he saw them built 
from beginning to end. He would spend hours with 
this shoemaker who made shoes every day, while the 
farmers made shoes only in winter. The man liked to 
have him around; and once in a while he would sus- 
pend work, and, to amuse the child, would extinguish 
the life of a fly on the opposite wall with an unerring 
squirt of tobacco juice. Louis danced with joy. What 
a wonderful man to spit like that. He tried to spit 
that way himself—failing ignominiously. The man told 
him he must spit hard between his teeth; and Louis 
did spit hard between his teeth; without avail. Then 
the Boardman man would catch flies with his hand 
and eat them, or pretend to eat them. Louis believed 
he really ate them. Then the shoemaker would return 
to his furious work, and Louis in admiration would 
wander on. The neighbors said this man Boardman 
was a lowdown sport who staid sober and worked hard 
only to get money to bet on the races—whatever that 
meant. But thus far Louis had made no social dis- 
tinctions. It did delight him, though, at a certain sea- 
son, to see Boardman, all dressed up and flashy, jump 
into his surrey behind a nervous high-stepping steed, 
start away with a prancing rush and disappear down 
the Stoneham Road lost in a trailing cloud of dust. 
For a long time after this event Boardman would not 
be seen thereabouts. 

Also he would visit Farmer Hopkins to watch him 
break a fallow field with his monstrous team of oxen, 
swaying and heaving heavily against the yoke, with 

[ 69 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


low-bending heads and foaming mouths, as the man, 
with one booted foot in the furrow, guided the plow- 
share as it turned up the beautiful black soil of the 
bottom land, while the man said, “‘gee-haw”’; “haw” ; 
“‘haw-gee.’’ Many such trips he made, always starting 
from his secret domain. Evenings he would tease Julia 
to tell him Irish fairy tales. How lovely, how beau- 
tiful they were, with fairies, elves, gnomes and a great 
company, weaving spells of enchantment in the moon- 
light. He lived them all. Julia was a robust Irish 
peasant who remained with the family for nine long 
years. Fiery was her hair; brilliant her white perfect 
teeth of which same she was very proud. And had she 
a temper? Sure! She had a temper that came and 
went like a storm. She was not long since come to 
America. Many evenings her Irish women friends 
called and they talked Irish together. He had never 
heard anything so sweet, so fluid, except the rivulet. 
He could listen by the hour; and Julia taught him a 
few words. 

All was running smoothly. it had not in the least 
occurred to him that all this time he had been a 
truant. No one had said anything for a whole month; 
or asked any questions. 
~ Then came the crash! ‘Teacher had written. Little 
was said at home. He was simply sent back to school. 
Here he languished in misery. But help soon came 
as suddenly as the crash. His father had opened a 
summer school in Newburyport. Grandma had writ- 
ten to Mama; Mama had told it to Father; Father de- 
cided that the grandparents were too soft; they had let 
his child grow up like a weed; they had pampered him 


[70] 


Perea? OBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


outrageously; it was high time his son was brought 
to him, that he might establish in him a sense of respect, 
order, discipline, obedience. So Mama took the train 
to South Reading. She spent a few days there visiting 
her parents. She looked at her son with a sadness he 
could not understand, but she found it not in her heart 
to chide. The day of their departure arrived. With 
many a sob he had said good-bye to all. They were 
driven to the depot. Mother and son boarded the 
train for Newburyport. ‘The engine puffed—the train 
sped on its way. Came to an end the day-dreaming 


of a child. 


[71] 


CHAPTER V 


Newbury port 
’ : \NHE train now well under way for Newburyport, 


our poet, he of the dream-life, crawled forth 

from his cave of gloom and began to take notice. 
Soon he was all notice and no gloom. His prior and 
only trip in a railway train was now over two years 
back in ancient history, which signified oblivion. Hence 
all was now new and novel. He began at once, at 
the very beginning of the beginning, that intolerable, 
interminable series of questions which all children ask 
and no mother can for long stand the strain of answer- 
ing. He did his mother the wholly unsolicited and 
unwelcome honor of assuming as a finality that she 
knew the names of every farmer along the route, that 
she knew why the trees went by so fast, why the tele- 
graph wires rose and fell and rose again; that she 
was personally acquainted with the conductor and the 
brakeman. At the forty-seventh question, Mother, who 
was only twenty-eight and not very strong, became 
drowsy with fatigue just as her son was becoming 
rigidly interested. Mother was not the only one asleep; 
everybody was asleep; and he noticed that they were all 
greasy with sweat and dust and grotesquely relaxed. 
He was intent on knowing the brakeman’s name. For 
that purpose he moved up the aisle, managed to open 
the door, was on the platform and would have 
been pitched to Kingdom Come as the ramshackle 
train rounded a sharp curve, had not a white-faced 
brakeman grabbed him, thrust him back into the car 


[72] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY, OF AN IDEA 


and, with a string of New England profanities, wanted 
to know why in thunder he was out on the platform. 
The child replied that he had come to ask him his name; 
to which the brakeman replied: ‘‘Wall, I swow, you 
be a cute un; you'll be President some day.” So the 
child immediately transferred his questionnaire from 
oblivious Mama to his wide awake new friend whom 
he found good natured, and much amused, and whose 
name as far as this recorder knows, may have been 
Matthew, Luke, David or Moses—all favorites in that 
day; but there were also many Johns, Jameses, Marks, 
Samuels, E;zechiases—but no Solomons. He put the 
brakeman through an exhaustive examination and cross- 
examination concerning this, that and the other, after 
he had induced him to detail his family connections 
and home life, and to give assurance that he was not 
a Papist, and had not hated his teacher. 

Then began the technical inquisition: Why did the 
wires move up and down all the time? What were 
the wires for? Why did the poles whizz by? What 
did “‘telegraph”” mean? What made that funny noise 
all the time, click-a-lick-click-click, click-a-lick click-click- 
click? And so on and so on. He was amazed at 
what the brakeman knew. It was wonderful how 
much he knew. Then came a toot for the next station; 
the brakeman swung open the door, let out a yell 
that startled the child, reminding him of the Baptist 
minister in South Reading, and began to twist the 
hand-brake with all his strength. The child saw all 
this through the open door. How wonderful that one 
man could be so strong as to stop a car that had been 
going so fast? Wasn’t it splendid to see a man in 


[73] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


action? He adopted “Luke” immediately. At the 
station Luke helped him down the steps, and he began 
verifying certain statements. For Luke had only told 
him; he wanted to see. So he examined the link and 
coupling pins, the flange on the wheels, the iron rails 
which he found badly frayed from wear, the open 
joints, the fish plates, the spikes, the ties, and was 
crawling under the car to examine the trucks when 
a strange man yanked him out and asked him if he 
was crazy. The bell rang; the brakeman hoisted him 
aboard before he had had time to go forward and ask 
the engineer his name, and the fireman his name, and 
how much wood it took, and what made the choo- 
choo. True the brakeman had told him all about it, 
but that wasn’t seeing; and besides he wished to know 
the engineer and the fireman personally, for they must 
be great men—it must be a wonderful man who could 
keep the engine on the track and steer it around all 
those curves as the brakeman said he did. And the 
brakeman said the fireman expected to be an engineer 
some day, but that he himself didn’t expect to brake 
no cars all his life—it was just hell in winter; and 
he went on to tell of his ambition, said he’d be damned 
if he’d work for anybody much longer; he’d save 
up some money and was going to have other men 
work for him, and he’d make more money out of them. 
He’d drive ’em, he said; he’d learn em what a day’s 
work meant when they worked for him, he would; 
and so on, excitedly. The child took no interest in 
this and wandered back to his mother, who, having 
observed him in safe hands, had not troubled. He 
started to tell her all about his new friend, what 


[74] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


a great man he was, that he wore three woolen under- 
shirts in winter, and knew the name of every station, 
and all about links and pins, and engines and tele- 
graph and everything, until Mama wearily turned 
toward him and gasped: “Louis! Louis!! Mon dieu, 
you are a pest!’ Louis thought it strange that his 
Mamma was not interested in what interested him, 
yet failed to reflect that the brakeman’s get-rich ro- 
mance had bored him. So on went the train swaying, 
rattling, banging, clanking, sinking suddenly, rising 
suddenly, screeching infernally around the curves, 
amidst smoke and dust and an overpowering roar. 
Soon there were two bedraggled ones sweatily sleeping 
side by side, and from the roar unfolded for one of 
them a dream of much mixed up brakemen, wheels, 
engineers, telegraphs, wood, links, pins, firemen, trucks 
—hbut no conductor; the conductor had not interested 
him, for he had a big belly, a heavy gold watch chain 
across it, gray chin whiskers, wore spectacles and did 
nothing but walk up and down, punch tickets and 
stick bits of cards in people’s hats. Faintly the brake- 
wheel creaked; and a distant voice seemed to call the 
name of a station—NEWBURYPORT! ! 


ok * *K 


The town, in, by, and of itself, made no first im- 
pression on him, other than one of quiet commonplace. 
It was not very different from the village of South 
Reading, only it was larger and had more streets and 
houses. 

The family had taken quarters in an old-looking 
building called a hotel—a word new to the child. The 
hotel fronted on a square in which were trees, and 


[75] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


on the other side of the square but not opposite the 
hotel was the town hall, and in front of the town hall 
was the town pump—of which, more later. Thus 
the family “boarded” at the hotel. The dining room 
was a large dreary cave containing one long table at 
which the boarders sat facing each other. From the 
middle one could not see the end of the rows of vacant 
sallow faces. The family had places in the middle— 
Louis sitting next to Mamma. He was hungry— 
always hungry. It was their first joint struggle against 
dyspepsia. Not much was said for a while; then Louis, 
in confidential tones, suitable to a pasture, uttered 
this sage judgment: ‘“‘Mamma; this gravy isn’t like 
Grandmamma’s gravy; this is only just a little flour 
and water!” Mamma made big eyes and grasped his 
arm, a titter went along the opposite row, napkins to 
faces, whispers exchanged, some rude persons laughed, 
and some one said ‘Hurrah!’ Lucky Grandpa wasn’t 
there—the ceiling would have fallen. Everybody was 
stunned at the child’s bravado, but assent was beaming. 
Perhaps, even, they yearned for some of Grandmam- 
ma’s gravy; why not? if they but knew! ‘The child 
looked at the opposite row of faces in astonishment. 
What was it all about? If the gravy was only a little 
flour and water, why not say so? Besides, he was only 
talking to Mamma anyway. And moreover, he did 
not see anything to laugh at, at all. It was a serious 
matter, this flour and water. 

Mamma said she would tell him something after 
a while when they were alone. And she did. Accord- 
ing to her view, children, in public, should be seen 
but not heard; they should speak only when spoken 
to; they should be well mannered, circumspect; they 


[ 76 | 


fee OBIOGRAPHY OF AN [DEA 


should especially be respectful toward their elders; they 
must never put themselves forward, or try to be smart 
or show off, or otherwise attract attention to them- 
selves; must remain in the background; speak in sub- 
dued tones and say: “‘yes, sir,’ “‘no, sir,” ‘‘yes, ma’am,”’ 
‘no, ma’am,”’ and she thus went on setting forth a com- 
plete code of ethics and etiquette for children in general 
and for her child in especial particularity, for she trusted 
he would not become, so she said, a young rufhan like 
other people’s children that were devoid of table man- 
ners in particular, and used the language of the streets. 
This was Mamma’s theory. In practice she vacillated, 
oscillated, vibrated, ricochetted, made figures of eight 
and spirals in her temperamental emotionalism and 
mother love, meanwhile clutching at the straw of her 
theory. And this was not all. Secretly she kept a 
note book. In this she entered carefully and minutely 
all the wonderful sayings of her son as observed by 
herself, or as transmitted in long letters from Grand- 
mamma. ‘True to form, she immediately entered the 
gravy item, wrote a long letter to Grandmamma about 
it, confessed she nearly strangled in suppressing her 
delight; and how the other people present were con- 
vulsed, as a loud voice, within the dining room’s wilder- 
ness, proclaimed the unholy truth that this was not 
like Grandmamma’s gravy—it was only just a little 
flour and water. Officially the child was squelched; 
and officially Mamma kept an eye to weatherward. 
But in her secret book she gave way to self flattery. 
Not so with Father. There was no sentiment, no 
nonsense about him. He would not rave for thirty 
minutes over a single blossom; a brief moment of 
appreciation suficed; during which he would express 


[77] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


regret at the absence in him of the sense of smell. 
This was the regular formula—unless it came to 
‘Scenery.’ What he had fixed firmly in mind was 
a practical program fitted to a child that had grown 
up like a weed—a program of physical training, com- 
bined with presumptive education and sure discipline. 
This program he set in motion by pulling his son out © 
of bed at five in the morning, standing him upright, 
hurrying him into his clothes and leading him by the 
hand straight to the town pump. Here Sullivan Senior 
pumped vigorously until certain the water was of low- 
est temperature; then he gave unto the child to drink. 
The child, as commanded, drank the full cup, shud- 
dered, and complained of the chill. Well, if he was 
chilly, he must run,—to establish circulation—again a 
new word. There was no help for it. After a sharp 
quarter mile, the son of Patrick Sullivan was con- 
vinced that “‘circulation’”” was now established, and 
said so. ‘They settled to a brisk walk. At the end 
of two miles they came upon a narrow arm of the 
sea, which spread into a beautiful sequestered pool, at 
the point reached, with water deep, and clear green, 
and banks quite high. Strip! was the order. Strip it 
was. No sooner done than the high priest dexterously 
seized the neophyte, and, bracing himself, with a back- 
forward swing cast the youngster far out, saw him 
splash and disappear; then he dived, came up beside 
a wildly splashing sputtering unit, trod water, put 
the child in order, and with hand spread under his 
son’s breast began to teach him the simple beginnings 
of scientific swimming. ‘Must not stay too long in 
the water,” he said. ‘‘Would Sonny like a ride astride 
Papa’s shoulders to a landing?” Sonny would and did. 


[ 78 ] 


Pee ae LUDIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


He gloried as he felt beneath him the powerful heave 
and sink and heave of a fine swimmer, as he grasped 
his father’s hair, and saw the bank approach. 

On land he took note of his father’s hairy chest, 
his satiny white skin and quick flexible muscles over 
which the sunshine danced with each movement. He 
had never seen a man completely stripped, and was 
pleased and vastly proud to have such a father, espe- 
cially when the father, an object lesson in view, made 
exhibition dives and swam this way and that way in 
lithe mastery. And he asked his father to promise 
him he would teach him how to do these things, that 
he too might become a great swimmer. For he had 
a new ideal now, an ideal upsprung in a morning’s 
hour—a vision of a company of naked mighty men, 
with power to do splendid things with their bodies. 

The return journey passed quickly and excitedly. 
Would Papa take him again to the pool? Yes, Papa 
would take him every morning to the pool. And 
would he have to swallow any more salt water? Not 
unless he opened his mouth at the wrong time. And 
why was the water salt, and why did it tingle the 
skin so queerly? Because it was sea water. And 
would Papa show him the sea? Yes, Papa would 
show him the sea, and ships under sail; and Papa 
would some day take him to the shipyards where ships 
were built. Ah, what prospects of delight! How 
big the world was growing, how fast the world was 
spreading. Had not Papa promised him? 

The dingy hotel loomed ahead; a mighty craving 
arose. ‘To the child, the bowl of cold oatmeal was 
super-manna. Father’s dietary law was strict; simple 


[79 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


foods, no coffee, no tea, no pastry, a little meat; and 
strictly taboo was white flour bread, for the millers 
had even then begun their work; lots of milk, some 
brown sugar, plenty of greens and fruit, potatoes only 
when baked, or boiled in their jackets and so eaten; 
no greasy things; and at times a tiny sip of claret 
as a bonus. His time-law for young people was: Taps 
at eight o’clock, reveille five o’clock. He put his son 
through a fine and highly varied course of calisthenics 
to make him supple and resilient. He took him daily 
to the pump and the pool, made of him for his age 
a competent diver and swimmer, made him vault fences, 
throw stones at a mark; taught him to walk properly 
—head up, chin in, chest out; to stride easily from the 
hip, loose in the shoulders. And the child worked 
with gusto; it became play; for the father did all 
these things with him jointly—they even ran races to- 
gether, and threw stones at marks, in competition. 
Surely it was intensive training; but Father was wise 
in these respects: He knew that where there was hard 
work, there must also be leisure and relaxation, and 
time for carefree play. Father was forty-five then, 
and wondrous wise for his day and generation. To 
be sure his profession gave him the time to spare. 

So, the family frequently went a-picnicking to the 
lovely banks of the Merrimac River, and elsewhere to 
shady groves and beauty spots. 

This Sunday, it was the first trip to the Merrimac— 
a clear, calm summer day, not too warm. 

They found, at the bend of the river, a bit of green- 
sward, sufficiently shaded, yet leaving an open view of 
the woods across the water. 


[80] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


The great stream flowed by tranquilly: its dark 
brown mirror solemnly picturing woods and sky. 

The child had never seen a river. Was it not 
wonderful, this river so wide, so dark, so silent, so 
swift in its flow? How could such things be? Why 
had he not known? 

Here and there a small fish jumped, leaving a pretty 
circle of ripples where it fell; and then arose into 
the air an enormous sturgeon, to fall heavily back, 
making a great hole whence came a rush of circles 
expanding magically to the shores, causing sky and 
trees to totter and twist; then all would be calm again 
and silent, as the great stream flowed on and on care- 
less of trifles; on and on, so Papa said, until its waters 
should mingle with the sea’s; on and on, day and night, 
winter and summer, year after year, before we were 
born, when we are gone, so Papa said, its waters had 
flowed and would evermore flow to the sea. 

Papa and Mamma had begun to draw pictures of 
the opposite shore, and were absorbed in the doing. 

The child watched sturgeon after sturgeon leap and 
fall; they seemed to shoot out of the water’s surface. 
He had never seen such big strong fishes; he had seen 
nothing larger than minnows and sunfish in South 
Reading. But here on this river everything was large. 

So thinking he wandered downstream along the 
water's edge, musing about South Reading, recalling 
his rivulet, his dam, his marsh. How small they 
seemed. And then there arose his tall, slender elm, 
his great ash tree to comfort him. Mechanically he 
ascended a hill, entered a heavy grove, musing, as he 
went, upon the great river Merrimac; lost in the 
thought that the world about him was growing so 


[81 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


large that it seemed out of proportion to him—too 
great for his little size, too bewildering for his un- 
tutored mind. Meanwhile something large, something 
dark was approaching unperceived; something ominous, 
something sinister that silently aroused him to a sense 
of its presence. He became aware; he peered through 
the foliage. What was it? He could not quite see; 
he could not make out; except that it was huge, long 
and dark. He thought of turning back, for he was 
but a little boy, alone in the woods bordering a dark- 
running river whose power had stilled him, and the 
lonely grove that stilled him; he was high strung with 
awe; he could glimpse the river; he was moving for- 
ward, unthinkingly, even while he thought of turning 
back. ‘The dark thing came ever nearer, nearer in 
the stillness, became broader, looming, and then it 
changed itself into full view—an enormous terrifying 
mass that overhung the broad river from bank to 
bank. 

The child’s anxious heart hurt him. What could 
this monster mean? He tried to call for Papa, but 
found no voice. He wished to cry out but could not. 
He saw great iron chains hanging in the air. How 
could iron chains hang in the air? He thought of 
Julia’s fairy tales and what the giants did. Might 
there be a fairy in the woods nearby? And then he 
saw a long flat thing under the chains; and this thing 
too seemed to float in the air; and then he saw two 
great stone towers taller than the trees. Could these 
be the giants? And then of a sudden, mystery of mys- 
teries, he saw a troll, not much bigger than a man, 
come out of the fairy forest, driving a fairy team. 


[ 82 ] 


feasts TOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


The troll went right across on the flat thing that 
floated in the air, and vanished. ‘This must be the 
land of enchantment that Julia told about. A wicked 
wizard has done this thing. A giant will come soon 
to eat up a little boy. And the trees murmured: “Yes; 
a wicked wizard has done this thing—a giant will 
come to eat up a little boy—good-bye, little boy’’—and 
the river said: “Good-bye little boy’’—and the great 
iron chains said: “‘Good-bye little boy.” The child 
shrieked: “Papa! Papa! Papa!’’ Instanter Papa ap- 
peared—ah, the good fairy had waved her wand in the 
enchanted wood! Papa had become concerned at the 
child’s long absence, and was angry that his son should 
have gone away without asking permission. He had 
intended to spank the child; but one look at that up- 
turned face, at those eyes glazed with approaching 
madness halted him in alarm. ‘‘What’s the matter, 
Sonny? Did something frighten you?” “Oh, Papa, 
Papa, see the big iron chains hanging in the air, see the 
two giants turned to stone, see the flat thing floating in 
the air. A troll just came over it with horses and 
wagon. I am to be eaten up by a giant. The troll 
with the magic wagon is coming to get me now. I am 
to be eaten by a giant, Papa; the trees have just said 
good-bye, little boy; the river has said good-bye, little 
boy; Oh, Papa, did the good fairy send you to save 
me?” Papa, thoroughly alarmed, impulsively said: 
“Yes, dear’; then, soothingly: “Sonny, you must not 
listen any more in memory to Julia’s Irish tales. They 
are not true, now. ‘There are not any giants or goblins, 
or trolls or elves or even fairies any more anywhere. 
They lived only in people’s fancy long ago, when Ire- 
land was young. It is onlv the tales that are told to- 


[ 83 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDE2Z 


day—for the Irish have ever loved romance. Their 
heads are filled with queer notions. ‘They imagine 
things that are not so. Papa lived in Ireland once; 
he knows what is true. Now we will go to the bridge 
and see it all.””. “‘And what isa bridge, Papa?” “That 
is what you are to see. Don’t be afraid. It won't 
hurt you.’”’ So they went to the nearby bridge. 

As they crossed to the Amesbury side the Father felt 
the nervous clutch of his child’s hand about his fore- 
finger. His own mind began to clear; now the child’s 
mind must be cleared. So he explained that the road- 
way of the bridge was just like any other road, only 
it was held up over the river by the big iron chains; 
that the big iron chains did not float in the air but were 
held up by the stone towers over the top of which they 
passed and were anchored firmly into the ground at 
each end beyond the towers; that the road-bed was 
hung to the chains so it would not fall into the river. 
That the bridge was so strong that many people and 
loaded teams could pass over it at the same time; 
and as he said this, happily some teams and people 
came and went. Father was clever in making simple 
explanations of things he knew something about. This 
expertness came of his long training in teaching little 
tots to dance. His skill and patience in this respect 
were fine art. So, gradually, he brought his son out of 
nightmare-land into the daylight of reality. For 
shameful fear, he substituted in his son’s heart con- 
fidence and courage. Thus was the child-mind freed 
again to wonder what men could do; to adjust itself 
to the greater world into which it had been suddenly 
catapulted from South Reading’s tiny world. Within 
that little spot of earth he had never seen a river, 


[ 84 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


never a bridge, for neither river nor bridge were there 
to be seen. On their way to rejoin Mamma, the child 
turned backward to gaze in awe and love upon the 
great suspension bridge. There, again, it hung in air 
—beautiful in power. The sweep of the chains so 
lovely, the roadway barely touching the banks. And 
to think it was made by men! How great must men 
be, how wonderful; how powerful, that they could 
make such a bridge; and again he worshipped the 
worker. | 

Mamma had become alarmed; but Father, on the 
approach, gave her a hush-sign. Evening was on the 
wing; dew was in the air; dark Merrimac still flowed, 
sturgeons still leaped high, a cricket chirped its first, 
cheerful note. ‘They returned to the dismal house 
of flour and water. 

This child was soon abed; the father sank into deep 
thought: This would never do; the boy must be pro- 
tected against himself; he was overexciteable; he must 
not be let go into the woods alone, nor near any 
mystic thing. His blood must be cooled—more water; 
no meat; his mind must be directed to everyday things; 
he would take him into the active world, to the ship- 
yards, to see ships a-building; he would take him to 
Plum Island, to get the salt sea air, to see the real 
ocean, with its ships coming and going under full sail; 
he would explain all these practical things to him and 
keep his mind wholesome; he must be educated to 
realities, disciplined, shown life as it is. And Father, 
thus ruminating, turned in. 

Now they are at the shipyards, father and son. Four 
or five ships are in progress on the ways; others are 
being rigged in the slips. One is a skeleton, another 


[ 85 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


almost ready to launch. There is much hubbub; men 
going here and there. The strident song of the caulk- 
ing iron saws the air; odor of tar everywhere; fine 
view of the harbor, craft of all kinds moving this way 
and that—some at anchor. Here in the shipyard were 
crowds of men working, doing many things, all mov- 
ing at the same time—all urging toward a great end. 
The child was in a seventh heaven; here were his 
beloved strong men, the workers—his idols. What 
a great world it was into which he had been thrust— 
the great river, the wonderful bridge, the harbor, the 
full rigged ships so gallantly moving. And what new 
words too—circulation, calisthenics, catenary, dietary, 
suspension bridge and others, that seemed very long, 
very strange indeed. Was he also entering a world 
of words? Were there many more such words? 
Eagerly he watched a man working with an adze. 
The man was lying on his back and chipping over- 
head. ‘Then the man turned on his side and chipped 
sidewise; then he chipped between his feet and in front 
of his feet. Was it not wonderful? He had never 
seen an adze, nor a man at work with an adze. Here, 
the man took off heavy chips and there only thin shav- 
ings; was it not wonderful? WHe wished to talk to the 
man, but the man was too busy; perhaps the man wished 
to keep his feet to walk home with. And all the 
other men were too busy to talk to him; they did 
not seem to know he was there, except one man near 
a kettle of hot tar who told him to get out of the 
way. And there were men boring holes in great planks; 
other men steaming planks, other men carrying planks, 
other men bending the planks against the ribs of the 
ship, other men driving in with sledge hammers great 


[ 86 | 


Toe AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


iron bolts to keep the planks in place, and these men, 
he guessed, had no time to talk to him. He wondered 
why the ships were all set stern-end toward the water. 
He wondered how “they” were going to get them 
into the water. And there were men who drove oakum 
—a new word—into the joints between the planks. 
They did it with a thin wedge and a funny looking 
mallet, and made a sound that beat upon his ear 
drums. He could get near enough to some of these 
men to talk to them, but they were too busy to hear 
him; and he saw men painting another ship which was 
all ready to be pushed into the water. And there 
was such a rush and crowd of things that were new 
to him that he was joyfully dazed—very happy, very 
serious. 

He had his first view of the power of concerted 
action; but he did not look at it that way. To him . 
it seemed the work of individual men working sep- 
arately, or of small groups of men helping each other 
—a great crowd of men each doing his own work in 
his own way. To be sure, he saw men walking about 
who spoke to the workmen, and the workmen always 
had to listen to these men. In the great confusion 
he had not sensed order, and therefore did not ask 
Papa about it. Yet he saw the ships grow, and saw 
the workmen make them grow. 

He walked all over the place with Papa, ever inquisi- 
tive, peering here and there. The hum of work was 
everywhere. He keenly sensed its greatness. What 
could men not do if they could do this, and if they 
could make a great bridge—suspended in the air over 
the Merrimac. He poured forth his questions and 
Papa answered them pretty well, but a bit pedantically 


[87 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


where he was not posted. He used too many big 
words. He concealed with them what he did not know. 

A few days later father and son saw the launching 
of a ship, and the child had another spasm of wonder, 
for the ship seemed to him to launch itself; he did 
not see any men pushing it, and Father recited some- 
thing about ‘‘she seems to feel the thrill of life along 
her keel,’ which he said was poetry because it all 
rhymed, so the child learned at once what poetry was 
—it was a new word. And again came the regular 
questionnaire, and again Father did his best, using 
however, so many strange long words that the child 
became drugged and drowsy with them and said he 
wanted to go home; so they both, father and son, 
went home. 

And soon the child began to tease to be taken to 
Plum Island, to see the ocean his father had talked 
about. Strangely enough there wasn’t any ocean at 
South Reading, any more than there was a great river 
and a wonderful bridge there; any more than there 
was a great shipyard and a great harbor. At South 
Reading there was only a railroad and two ponds—a 
big pond and a little pond and some hills. So the 
son, accompanied by the father, went to Plum Island, 
for he had said, ‘This is to be mine, isn’t it, Papa?” 
And the father had relaxed at the idea. 

There they stood, in a stiff salt breeze, on the sharply 
sloping rounded beach; some drifting clouds in a pale 
sky, some ships in the offing. True, he had seen the 
ocean at Cape Ann, seen it in furious, terrifying, storm- 
ing moods; seen it as huge glossy ground swells, as 
glancing, dancing wavelets in the sunshine; but that 
was long, long ago when he was three; he had wholly 
[ 88 ] 


Pee ol OBIOGRAPHY OF AN: IDEA 


forgotten what happened when he was three—and 
four—and five. He had forgotten even that he had 
fallen into a well there. He had, like the workmen 
in the shipyard, been too busy—all these years, these 
months, these days. 

Even South Reading was fading before the glory of 
the new-risen day; this engulfing splendor of Newbury- 
port, as they stood there, on the hard wet sand, two 
figures solitary, a mere speck, a minute accent on the 
monotonous miles of beach and pounding surf. The 
child looked far seaward, without emotion, save a sense 
of dull platitude, of endless nothingness, of meaning- 
less extension. ‘The sea was merely rough, without 
mood, dull in color, spotted here and there by a cloud’s 
shadow. It left him indifferent, all except the green 
and white combing surf which was in merry mood. 
He wished to wade in but Father said positively no, 
the beach was too steep, the undertow too strong. 
Undertow? Undertow ?—another word—more expla- 
nations. He built sand forts which the rising tide 
made short work of; he ran up and down the beach, 
waded in the dry sand, found some wild cranberry 
bushes. He ran back to Papa who was wrapped in 
thought, standing with folded arms, facing the sea. 
Far to the east, far over the waters lay Ireland, he 
said to his son. [he son looked for Ireland; it was 
not to be seen; but he cried out of a sudden: ‘Papa, 
some of those ships are sinking! One is all gone but 
the top of the masts; one is just beginning to sink!” 
Father, who wished to educate his son, now found 
his work cut out for him. How explain the curvature 
of the sea? How explain the horizon? How prove 
that the ships were not sinking? He went at it bravely, 

[ 89 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY Of AN Tees 


patiently, doggedly, step by step; he even made dia- 
grams on his drawing pad. Little by little the child 
grasped the idea; he brightened with intelligence. His 
Father had opened for him then and there a new, 
an utterly unsuspected world—the world of pure knowl- 
edge—vaster than the sea, vaster than the sky. And 
for the child, the portal to that limitless world was an 
illusion—a sinking ship. 

Now it was time to return to Boston. ‘The school 
must open soon. In the bustle of preparation the day 
he was seven passed unnoticed even by himself. New- 
buryport departed—Boston came. 


[ 90 | 


CHAPTER VI 


Boston 
\ S ONE in tranquillity gazes into the crystal depths 


called Memory, in search of sights and sounds 

and colors long since physically passed out from 
what is otherwise called memory; when one is intent, 
not upon recalling but upon re-entering, he finds a 
double motion setting in. While out of the gray sur- 
face-obscurity of supposed oblivion, there emerges to 
his view, as through a thinning haze, a broad vision 
assuming the color and movement of a life once lived, 
of a world once seen and felt to be real, so likewise, 
the intensive soul moves eagerly forward descending 
through intervening atmospheric depths toward this 
oncoming solid reality of time and place, a reality grow- 
ing clearer, more colorful, more vibrant, more alluring, 
more convincing—filling the eye, the ear with sound 
and color and movement, with broad expanses, with 
minute details, with villages and cities, farms and 
work shops, men and women densely gathered or 
widely scattered, and children, little children always 
and everywhere. So moving, the two great illusions, 
the two dreams of the single dreamer, accelerating, 
rush onward, and vanish both into a single life which 
is but a dream';—the dream of the past enfolding and 
possessing the dreamer of today; the dreamer of today 
enveloping, entering and possessing the dream-reality 
of the past; all within the inscrutable stillness of a 
power unknown, within which we float, with our all, 
and believe ourselves real. We believe in our reality 
in our strenuous hours, in our practical doings, in our 
declamatory moments, and even in our hours of silence. 


[91 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDE 


In sleep there come images before us, floating by, irre- 
trievable, or steadfastly convincing; and these we speak 
of casually as dreams. We are willing even to extend 
the idea of dream to man’s ambition. We say such 
or such a man had or has dreams of empire, of domin- 
ion, of achievement, of fulfilment of this or that sort. 
And occasionally we acknowledge, upon information, 
that such dream had taken full possession not of a man 
we read about, or see in the plenitude of his power, 
but that the dream arose within a child, in broad day- 
light—as night-dreams do in their way—and aroused 
in him a passionate desire. 

We do not associate the idea of dream with our 
strenuous hours of thought and deed in the selfsame 
broad daylight. Nor do we see the stars at noon— 
but they are there. So is a dream there, within every 
human, ever—day and night unceasingly. 

We impeach the dream idea, calling certain men 
‘‘Dreamers.”’ We do this in derision—much as the 
pot might call the kettle black. We do not suspect 
that we could not put one foot forth before the other 
were we not dreaming; so artificial and sophisticated 
are we in our practical moments. And it is even so 
as we forget that each of us was once a child; even 
as we banish the thought, as crude, that out of that 
very child we have grown inevitably to be what we 
are; that the thoughts, the feelings, the emotions, the 
reactions, the waking dreams of that child have gov- 
erned and determined us, willy-nilly, through the course 
of -our lives and careers with compelling power—that 
what the child accepted we accept; that what the child 
rejected we reject. 


[ 92 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


Thus from the abysm of Memory’s stillness, that 
child comes into being within Life’s dream, within 
the dream of eternal time and space; and in him we 
behold what we were and still are. Environment may 
influence but it cannot alter. For it is the child in 
multiple and in multiple series that creates the flowing 
environment of thought and deed that shall continu- 
ously mature in its due time. It is the moving child- 
in-multiple of long ago that created for us the basic 
environment within which we now live. ‘Thus in a 
memory-mirror may we re-discover ourselves. Expect- 
ing to find therein a true reflection of ourselves as 
we believe we are, the image dissolves as the features 
of a long forgotten child confront us. Deny him, we 
dare not. 

Turning about from self-contemplation we find chil- 
dren everywhere. We see the tidal wave of children 
moving on and on, we partly under their dominion, 
they partly under ours. But theirs is the new, ours 
the old; and, as ancients, we move on, unchanged from 
the children that we were—leaving our thoughts and 
deeds as a beaten trail behind us. 

With this image in view the narrator has laid ex- 
tended stress upon an authentic study of child life. 
Maturing years have made it but too clear that only 
on such foundation, resting deep within the vast-mov- 
ing and timeless heritage of Instinct and Intellect, 
might a valid superstructure be reared into the light 
of our day. Men in their fatuity believe that they 
cause replicas of themselves to be born of woman; that 
they create children like themselves for themselves. 
They are picturesquely unaware, in mass, that they 
are but instrumental, normally, in bringing forth full 


[93 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


grown men and women whom they may never see, 
but who, it must be so, are in essence of being with 
them at birth, specifically differing from them. Hence 
the unceasing flood of child personalities, accepting or 
rejecting influences in an environment they had no 
share in making. Historically, and in mass, victims 
of Fate rather than Masters of Destiny. For Destiny 
and Fate alike have birth in what is accepted or re- 
jected by the child. 


* * * 


With this digression as a commentary we may now 
resume in its natural course the story of a growing 
child well known to us, and proceed to extend that 
series of rejections and acceptances—beginning in his 
infancy—into an ever enlarging world of fact and fic- 
tion until we may perchance obtain a glimpse of what 
they really were, and of their significance in determin- 
ing his onward drift—a drift that as yet has developed 
no self-defined momentum. 

Shortly after their return to Boston from Newbury- 
port, the father, for reasons of his own, whatever they 
were, decided to move his family to Halifax, Nova 
Scotia. “They were away six months. 


* * * 


A small boy stood on the dock at Eastport, Maine, 
holding in his hand a huge greengage plum. The same 
small boy suffered and saw the agonies of those who 
cross the Bay of Fundy. He saw and lived in a hotel 
in Halifax, where an Academy was opened. Later 
he endured in patience the terrible discipline of his 
father, who in below zero weather walked him for 


[ 94 | 


Pree LOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


miles along the bleak ‘Northwest Arm,” to return 
with white cheeks and nose, only to be told to wash 
his face in snow—the father doing the like. He saw 
his gods blasting a deep trench for water pipe through 
the solid slate ledge, and again he marvelled at what 
men could do. He saw the great citadel crowning 
the heights, and from it, he viewed the harbor. Then 
came calamity. Mamma was taken down with diph- 
theria; and he saw the great and grand Newfound- 
land dog, that had welcomed them effusively on their 
arrival and had adopted them at once, lying day after 
day, night after night, faithfully guarding her cham- 
ber door. Mamma recovered; but her illness was pro- 
phetic of change. 

In the spring they returned to Boston, and Louis 
was sent to live with his grandparents in South Read- 
ing, as before, with the proviso that he was to return 
to his parents in the fall. He became at once deeply 
immersed in the miniature activities of the farm, taking 
the initiative wherever he could, doing small things 
with large enthusiasm. He did not consider such 
things work, but joy. He was physically active and 
mentally active too. He was always excited in his 
work and always constructive. As Grandpa also 
worked, they became great pals, and planned and 
worked together. His natural surroundings became less 
mystical to him. He held them in affection, but no 
longer in dreamy wonder. The delicate bloom of early 
childhood was passing, while the vigor and aggressive- 
ness of budding boyhood were rising as branches from 
the same deep root. His love of the open remained 
constant and intense. He was developing pride, am- 
bition, and a sense of growing power over material 


[95] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ANGE 


things. The desire some day to exercise such power 
to the full became in him a definitive dream, within 
which, unnoticed, was resident the glow of a deeper 
power—a power that had suffused a swiftly-moving, 
vocal springtime, which he had seen and heard and 
lived in this same spot. 

Grandpa did not bother about the child’s education, 
for, being wise, he knew the child was daily self-acquir- 
ing an education exactly suited to his temperament 
and years. But Grandmamma believed otherwise. 
She thought her grandson needed polish, and that he 
should now begin a systematic study of the French 
language. Louis was willing enough and started in 
gaily. He liked the sound, and the words in italics 
looked pretty; all went well for a while. As he got 
in deeper he began to be oppressed by the inanities of 
the grammar-book, and the imbecilities of a sort of 
first reader in which a wax-work father takes his wax 
children on daily promenades, explaining to them as 
they go, in terms of unctuous morality, the works of 
the Creator, and drawing therefrom, as from a spool, 
an endless thread of pious banalities. Louis rebelled. 
He declared he was an AMERICAN BOY !—that 
none of his playmates spoke French—why should he? 
Grandmamma, in habitual indulgence, discontinued 
polishing. She could not enter the child-mind. To 
her, her grandson was an object of boundless love— 
and little more; and yet this little more was an im- 
passable gulf, lying as a chasm between old age gently 
petrifying in the thoughts of her own childhood, and 
a vigorous young animal with thoughts and an im- 
petuous will of his own. And he in turn held his 


[ 96 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


grandmamma to be the sweetest of mortals—and little 
more. 

Thus summer passed on broad pinions sweeping, and 
Louis saw it moving thus. He saw such things. Be- 
neath all the overlay the child was a mystic; inarticu- 
late, wondering, believing. These fleeting revelations 
of Life came and went as interludes within the chosen 
practicalities of his realistic and material activity. He 
had rather help build a stone wall than listen to a 
poem—all except the fairy tales that Julia told—for 
here was Romance—and romance he could not with- 
stand. | 

One morning ;—it happened to be September 3rd of 
that year,—Louis Henri Sullivan arose early and sal- 
lied forth in pomp and pride. On the Stoneham road 
he met a farmer friend: 

Hello! Do you know I am eight years old today? 

No, wall, wall, that’s fine. Heow old did yeh say 

yeh be? 

I am Eight! Don’t you think I’m a big boy now? 

Do you want to feel my muscle? 

My sakes—but yeh aire strong! 

Yes I am. I can lift a stone almost as big as my 

grandfather can; but of course he’s older. 

How old did yeh say yeh be? 

I say I am eight years old today and I want you 

to know it. Do you want to pound my chest? 

Can’t say’s I do. 

You may pound my chest as hard as you like and 

I won’t say a word. Have you noticed my new 
boots? It’s my first pair. My grandma gave 
them to me for my birthday. 

No I hadn’t saw them. 


[97 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ZN ave 


Well, look at them now. See; they’re copper-toed 
and have red tops. Don’t you think they’re fine? 
Yaas; how old did yeh say yeh be? I think yeh 
got a mighty fine granny t’give yeh them boots. 


And the Ancient doddered down the road dustily 
regurgitating the thoughts of his childhood now be- 
come decayed and senile; while bounding boyhood clat- 
tered on, from house to house, from field to field, wher- 
ever might be found man, woman, or child to whom 
he might sing his own saga in vainglory. For was he 
not right? Was he not Eight? Was he not hero- 
ically aware that that day he was crossing the invisible 
line between childhood and boyhood? Were not the 
gaudy boots his plain certificate of valor and of deeds 
done and to be done? Were they not for him sym- 
bols of that manhood toward which he so ardently 
yearned that his pride might come to the full? He 
said it was so. In this joyous mood was his saga sung, 
as of one with a growing faith. 

Then came, as it were, a bugle call from the south. 
He answered the call in person. Boston City swal- 
lowed him up. 

The effect was immediately disastrous. As one 
might move a flourishing plant from the open to a dark 
cellar, and imprison it there, so the miasma of the big 
city poisoned a small boy acutely sensitive to his sur- 
roundings. He mildewed; and the leaves and buds of 
ambition fell from him. In those about him, already 
city-poisoned, even in his own kin, he found no solace, 
and ceased openly to lament. Against the big city 
his heart swelled in impatient, impotent rebellion. Its 
many streets, its crooked streets, its filthy streets, lined 


[ 98 | 


eee ODIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


with stupid houses crowded together shoulder to shoul- 
der like selfish hogs upon these trough-like lanes, irri- 
tated him, suffocated him; the crowds of people, and 
wagons, hurrying here and there so aimlessly—as it 
appeared to him —confused and overwhelmed him, 
arousing amazement, nausea and dismay. As he 
thought of the color, the open beauty of his beloved 
South Reading, and the great grand doings of New- 
buryport, where men did things; where there was obvi- 
ous, purposeful action; an exhibit of sublime power; 
the city of Boston seemed a thing already in decay. He 
was so saddened, so bewildered, so grieved, that his 
sorrow, his bitter disappointment, could find no ade- 
quate utterance and relief. Hence he kept it all within 
himself, and became drugged to the point of lassitude 
and despair. The prospect of a whole winter to be 
spent within these confines, shut out from the open 
world that had been growing so large and splendid for 
him, filled him at times with a sudden frantic desire to 
escape. Had not his father at once taken up again the 
rigorous training of cold baths and outdoor exercise, 
had he not taken him on long walks to Roxbury, to 
Dorchester, even to Brookline, where the boy might 
see a bit of green and an opening-up of things, the 
boy would surely have carried out his resolution to 
run away. To run where? Anywhere to liberty and 
freedom ! 

He had partly revived from the first shock, when 
his ruthless father placed him in the Brimmer School 
on Common Street. Louis found it vile; unspeakably 
gloomy; a filthy prison for children. He learned noth- 
ing. There was no one to teach him, and what he 
saw there shall not be recorded here. So passed the 


[99 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 4N IDEa4 


winter; Louis looking, ever aimlessly, yearning, for 
a teacher. As a rose springs upward from the muck 
and puts forth gracious blooming, even so out of the 
muck of this school a re-action sprang up, a fervent 
hungered yearning within, for a kindred spirit to arise 
that might illumine him and in whom he might rejoice; 
a spirit utterly human that would break down the 
dam made within him by sanctioned suppressions and 
routine, that there might pour out of him the gathered 
cesspool, and the waters of his life again flow on. Of 
such a nature was the hunger of a well-fed child. 

As the Boston winter of ’64 was groaning on its 
way to the tomb of all winters) Mamma was again 
stricken with diphtheria; and again she recovered. The 
city winter passed, a city springtime passed. With 
vacation at hand, Louis returned to his grandparents, 
resumed his activities now enlarged in scope, and in 
the fall returned to the City, his wounds somewhat 
healed. He was immediately placed in the newly or- 
ganized Rice School—temporarily housed in another 
gloomy structure, but not so foul—at that time situ- 
ated on the west side of Washington Street and a short 
distance south of Dover Street. Here he learned noth- 
ing at first except in-so-far as there was a sort of 
mechanical infiltration going on. But, at a nearby book 
store, ““‘Beadle’s Dime Novels” appeared in a whirl- 
wind of popularity. Louis Sullivan pounced upon 
them. He devoured the raw melodramas and cried for 
more. Here at last was Romance! Here again were 
great men doing great deeds. Here was action in the 
open. He could live these scenes. He could visualize 
these acts even within the deadly philistine air of 
Washington Street and its Rice School where he was 
[ 100 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


supposed to know that 2:4:: 4:8. He did not espe- 
cially care for the standardized lady in the case who 
was always ravishingly beautiful and always eighteen; 
and to the villain he was sometimes lenient, but the 
hero, that magnificent man-god whose ear had just 
been grazed by the arrow of a huge red savage—him 
he took to his bosom. He got a thrill out of every 
page, which was more than he ever got out of the 
school. He was to remain at this school for several 
years, during which time he slowly became citified. His 
activities naturally spread over an ever widening field; 
and these years were filled with multifarious details 
Jarge and small. His geographical ventures extended 
from South Reading as a center to Stoneham, Woburn, 
North Reading, Saugus and Ipswich; and from Bos- 
ton as a center to Rockport, Gloucester, Marblehead, 
Salem, Lynn and Nahant; and southward into Jamaica 
Plain. Between Boston and South Reading were dot- 
ted, as villages or hamlets, Somerville, Malden, Mel- 
rose, Greenville and South Reading Junction. West 
of the Junction was a small affair called Crystal Lake, 
with bare and sterile surroundings, including an ice- 
house on its northern shore. The big pond to the north 
of South Reading—then a village of possibly two 
thousand souls—was officially known as Lake Quanna- 
powitt. From the western shore of this lake projected 
a promontory, and within this promontory was a ceme- 
tery. 

During these years, Louis Sullivan, always inquisi- 
tive and foolhardily curious, had ferreted out every 
street, alley and blind court, and dock and wharf from 
end to end and crosswise within the limits of Boston, 
and had made partial explorations of Charlestown, 

[ 101 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


Chelsea, and South Boston. Thus there gradually arose 
within his consciousness a clearing sense of what a city 
meant objectively as a solid conglomerate of diverse 
and more or less intricate activities. He began indeed 
to sense the city as a power—unknown to him before— 
a power new-risen above his horizon; a power that ex- 
tended the range and amplified the content of his own 
child-dream of power as he had seen it manifested in 
the open within the splendid rhythm of the march of 
the seasons. Nevertheless, he saw, in his boy-way, and 
felt it strongly, a great mysterious contrast between the 
two. Inthe open all was free, expansive and luminous. 
In the city all was contraction, density, limitation, and 
a cruel concentration. He felt that between himself 
and the city, as such, lay a harsh antagonism that 
seemed forever insoluble; as though men had made 
the city when they were mad; and that as it grew under 
their hands it had mastered and confined them. Yet 
men, women and children seemed to move about freely 
enough at certain hours. These waves of doubt and 
apprehension camé and passed at intervals, but each 
wave left its precipitate, in solution as it were, in the 
boy’s quizzical mind. He became less and less un- 
friendly toward the school, as sporadic knowledge 
crept out of his books and took on a certain segregated 
appearance of validity, having slight connection, how- 
ever, with his own world. He ceased to be wholly 
rebellious, and took his small doses of formal routine 
education much as he might take a medicine supposedly 
for his good. ‘Thus far his father had been his only 
successful teacher. 

The boy had acquired and was continuing to acquire 
the education he possessed partly through a series of 


[ 102 ] 


Pee ODIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


shocks—frequently humiliating—which inverted his il- 
lusions into realities; partly through his own keen pow- 
ers of observation, and perhaps something in the way 
of intuition; but mainly and fundamentally through 
his high sensitiveness to externals which, always with 
him, took on character, definition and, as it were, a 
personality. He was now ripe for another shock. 

One day his father took him on a walk to South 
Boston, and made him run up a high hill on the top 
of which was a reservoir. ‘This altitude reached, a 
great view spread before them. ‘The boy at once be- 
came exalted with awe at the living presence and 
expanding power of Mother Earth. Never—since the 
long forgotten days of Halifax—had he reached such 
a peak of observation. His father’s love for “‘scenery”’ 
had taken them there. As the boy gazed in thrilling 
wonder, his father called attention, one after another, 
to special points of beauty in the land and water- 
scape, finally coming around to the Blue Hills, which 
indeed were blue and enchanting against the far hori- 
zon and its haze. After explaining the nature of the 
haze, father called attention to two outstanding peaks, 
near together but differing in size, and asked his son 
a point-blank question: Which of the two hills is the 
larger? His son walked straight into the trap, saying 
that of course the larger one was the larger—why 
did Papa ask? ‘Then the trap fell—knocking Louis 
senseless—for Papa said, (beyond a doubt maliciously 
he said it) that the smaller was the larger. When 
Louis came to, he protested vehemently; but Papa said 
he had been there and knew. Then, relenting, believ- 
ing he had carried his practical joke far enough, he 
told his son, seriously, that the effect, the appearance, 


P1034 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


the illusion was, in fact, due to what he called PER- 
SPECTIVE; and the nature of this particular per- 
spective, and perspective in general, he explained with 
notable skill, simplicity, and with many objective in- 
stances. But Louis instead of receiving this informa- 
tion with acclaim and joy, as a new world opening 
before him, was deeply saddened and perturbed. His 
father, sincerely believing he was educating his own, 
came near to destroying him. He was no psychologist, 
he had indeed but little human sympathy or insight— 
hence he had no suspicion of what was going on be- 
neath the surface of his own son. For had not that 
son built up a cherished world all his own, a world 
made up of dreams, of practicalities, of deep faith, of 
unalloyed acceptance of externals, only now to find 
that world trembling and tottering on its foundations, 
threatening to collapse upon him, or to vanish before 
this new and awful revelation from the unseen. This 
ghostly apparition which his father called “perspective” 
terrorized him. What his father said about it did not 
help. For behind the perspective that the father saw 
was a perspective that the child saw—invisible to the 
father. It was MYSTERY—a mystery that lay be- 
hind appearances, and within appearances, and in front 
of appearances, a mystery which if penetrated might 
explain and clarify all, as his father had explained and 
clarified a little. Did this mystery reside also in his 
lovely slender elm tree? Was his great friend the 
ash tree involved in mystery? Was the sunrise that 
had glorified him and the earth around him part of this 
mysterious perspective that lay behind appearances, 
that lay behind even the clear apparition his father 
called perspective? Must he lose his faith in what 


[ 104 | 


Pree UPOBIOGRAPHY OF (AN IDEA 


seemed real? Was Boston itself and all within it but 
a mask and a lie? Was there within it and behind it 
a perspective, a mystery which if understood might 
reveal and clarify it, making it intelligible? Could 
this mystery be penetrated? He was determined it 
should be, soon or late—and that he would doit. Thus 
had a father’s playful joke set up in a child a raging 
fermentation. Such high-pitched emotion could not 
last. Such vision was bound to fade. Such fear must 
pass. And so it happened. The turmoil, the chaos 
lasted but as the span of a day-dream. But within that 
dream, within that turmoil, there awakened a deeper 
dream that has not passed. ‘Thus Louis Sullivan ac- 
cepted and rejected; rejected and accepted. 

He returned to the school and the streets which 
were much the same thing to him. At recess he 
promptly announced that he could lick any boy of his 
size. Whereupon “his size’ knocked him in the eye, 
and the two “sizes” went at it, according to regula- 
tions which consisted in beginning fairly and ending 
foully—two boys rolling over and over in the middle 
of the street, in the center of an eager, urging, admir- 
ing circle of excited rufhans of varied sizes, who cried 
at the proper time: “‘He’s had enough; let him up.” 
Sometimes Louis’s prophecies were verified. Some- 
times they proved unfortunate. But it was all the same, 
all in the game; and there was established in the school 
a ‘““Who’s Who” that never reached print. Moreover 
there was established a Hierarchy in which each ‘“‘who”’ 
was definitely ranked according to the who’s he could 
lick, and the who’s and sizes who could lick him. And 
while all this was going on, Louis picked up, in addi- 
tion to a bit of geography and arithmetic, every form 

[ 105 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


of profanity, every bit of slang, and every particle of 
verbal garbage he could assimilate. In other words 
he was one of the gang and a tough. But his honor 
required that he refrain from licking the good boys 
just because they were good—which could not be said 
of some. 

He was progressing so well at school, his mother 
thought—for his teacher so certified for reasons un- 
known—perhaps to conceal the truth—that she be- 
lieved it time he learn to play the piano. Louis thought 
otherwise. Mamma was stern, Louis yielded. Mam- 
ma promised it should be half an hour only, every day. 
She placed her watch in good faith on the piano shelf 
—fatal error—and the series began. It was not that 
Louis disliked music; quite the contrary. Had not his 
parents but recently taken him to Boston Music Hall, 
there to hear a great Oratorio rendered by the Handel 
and Haydn Society? Had he not been overwhelmed 
by the rich volume and splendor of choral harmonies 
—again a new and revealing world? Had he not 
thrilled to the call: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; 
and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King 
of Glory shall come in.”’ 

Was he not always teasing his mother to play for 
him any one of a group of brilliant five-fingered exer- 
cises arranged as stately composition? No; Louis 
loved his Mamma but hated the piano when annexed 
to himself. So the series moved on to disaster. The 
five-finger work bored him, the dinky tunes enraged 
him; he watched the watch, he kicked the piano, he 
struck false notes, he became utterly unruly; and at 
the agonizing end of one especially bad half-hour, 
Mamma burst into hysterical tears; and Louis, seeing 
[ 106 | 


Peewee LOBIOGRAPHY OF AN. IDEA 


the damage he had done, threw his arms about her 
neck and cried his heart out with her. Thus the series 
ended, by mutual understanding and Mamma’s for- 
giveness—as Mamma’s tears still flowed from bitterly 
swollen eyes, as she gazed blindly in unspeakable sor- 
row at her repentant but incorrigible son. But—let it 
be said in a whisper—Mamma should have known that 
Louis’s hands were not made for the piano. Louis did 
not know it; yet there lay all the trouble. 

Then the father thought he would teach his son 
drawing. His son thought otherwise. His son detested 
drawing. ‘The prospect of copying a lithographic plate 
setting forth a mangle, a step-ladder, a table, a mop 
and a pail, was not alluring. Louis demurred. Father 
thought a thrashing would help along some. He 
started in. A she-wolf glared. He quailed—End of 
still-born drawing lesson. No series. 

Meanwhile the name of the village of South Read- 
ing was, by popular vote, changed to Wakefield. Cyrus 
Wakefield, rattan magnate, thought it good business 
to offer a new town hall in exchange for his name. 
The townspeople thought so too. The deed was done; 
both deeds were done; and, as if on a magic carpet 
the farm that Louis had lived on floated from South 
Reading into Wakefield—meanwhile remaining station- 
ary as of yore. This occurred in the summer of 1868 
when Louis was in his twelfth year. 

Meanwhile, also, in 1868, a new school building 
was in course of construction on new made land in 
the Back Bay district. It was to be up to date in 
all respects, and was to be called The Rice Grammar 
School Building. 

In the winter of this year, Mamma, for the fifth 


“the a Seen : POT 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


time, was stricken with diphtheria and her life des- 
paired of. She pulled through on a perilous margin. 
Father, now thoroughly frightened, finally got it 
through his head that the east winds meant death. So 
in the summer of 1869 he moved his family to Chi- 
cago—leaving Louis behind, to live with his grand- 
parents, and continue his education. Louis sobbed on 
his Mother’s shoulder, but was much relieved to say 
to his father: Good-bye! Now he was free! 


[ 108 ] 


CHAPTER VII 


Boston 
The New Rice Grammar School 
[) » day, in Boston, a boy of nine was walking 


northward on the east side of Washington 
Street. Just then “Yankee Doodle’ came 
along whistling his tune to a brisk step, a pair of boots 
slung over one shoulder of his faded blue jeans; and, 
under a stovepipe hat, much battered in the strife of 
years, this agile elderly man wore a grey chin beard 
after the manner of Uncle Sam. And thus went Yan- 
kee Doodle tirelessly up and down Washington Street, 
always on the east side of it, day after day, year after 
year. In a legendary sense he was a cobbler. ‘The 
boy watched his kindly face approaching, and for the 
hundredth time admired in despair the clear sharp 
whistle which he had tried in vain to emulate; and, as 
Yankee passed on southward the boy turned east into 
South Bennett Street following the south sidewalk. 
About midway to Harrison Avenue a paper bag struck 
the sidewalk in front of him, burst, and hard candies 
scattered over the pavement. The boy, startled, 
looked around, and then up. In a second story win- 
dow, straight across the way, appeared two fat bare 
arms, an immense bosom, a heavy, broad, red face, 
topped with straight black hair. A fat finger beckoned 
to him; a fat mouth said something to him; and at the 
doorway of the house was the number 22—the house 
he had been born in; but the silver nameplate marked 
P. Sullivan in black script was no longer there. 
He had been led to the spot, which he had not seen 


[ 109 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEZ 


for years, by a revived memory of a sweet child named 
Alice Look, who lived next door when the two of 
them were three together. He had wished to see once 
more the sacred dwelling wherein she had lived and 
the walled yard in which she had mothered him and 
called him Papa in their play. 

Much troubled, he walked on to Harrison Avenue, 
where Bennett Street ends its one block of length. 
There he noticed that the stately trees were bare of 
leaves and sickly to the sight, while on the twigs and 
among the branches and even on the trunks were hun- 
dreds of caterpillar nests which made the trees look 
old, poor and forsaken. While he was counting the 
nests on a single tree, caterpillars now and then would 
come slowly downward from the heights. Some of 
them would remain for a time in mid-air, suspended 
invisibly, before completing their descent, perchance 
upon a passerby. he boy was examining one of these 
caterpillars undulating upon his coat sleeve, when his 
quick ear detected the sound of snare-drums. Crowds 
began to gather on the sidewalks. Slowly the drums 
beat out their increasing sadness, pulsing to a labored 
measure of weariness and finality, as a faint bluish 
mass appeared vaguely in the north. ‘The sidewalk 
crowds became dense—men, women and children stood 
very still. Onward, into distinctness and solidity, came 
the mass of faded blue undulating to the pathos of 
the drums. The drum corps passed—and in the grow- 
ing silence came on and passed ranks of wearied men 
in faded blue, arms at right shoulder, faces weather- 
beaten, a tired slow tread, measured as a time-beat on 
the pavement, the one-two of many souls. And to these 
men, as they marched, clung women shabbily clothed, 


[ 110] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


with shawls drawn over their heads, moving on in a 
way tragically sad and glad, while to the skirts of many 
of these women clung dirty children. Thus moved in | 
regular mass and in silence a regiment of veterans, 
their women, their children, passing onward between 
two tense rows of onlooking men, women and children, 
triple deep, many of them in tears. So vivid was this 
spectacle, so heartrending, so new this aching drama of 
return, that the boy, leaning against a caterpillared tree, 
overflowed with compassion. When he had ceased 
weeping upon his coat sleeve, Harrison Avenue was 
vacant; but not so the boy—he in fullness of sympathy 
was ill with the thought of what all.this might mean. 
What was the mystery that lay behind these men in 
faded blue? He found no sufficing answer. The men 
had been mustered out, he had been told; that was all. 
He chafed until he got permission to go to South 
Reading for a week end; ostensibly to visit the grand- 
parents, surreptitiously to visit Julia, to whom alone he 
could bare his heart. He knew in advance what Grand- 
pa would say; he knew in advance what Grandma 
would say; he wished eagerly to learn what Julia might 
say. So after earnest greetings with Grandpa and 
Grandma he slipped quietly to the kitchen. Julia was 
not there. He moved to the barn; Julia was not there. 
Then, in dime-novel fashion he made a detour through 
the ‘“‘old” orchard, dodging from tree to tree in Indian 
fashion, examining the grass, crawling slowly on all 
fours, bent on surprise, signalling to an imagined com- 
panion in the rear, cautiously advancing until he caught 
a glimpse of a broad back, topped with massy hair on 
fire. He approached at a flat crawl and, from behind 
the next tree, saw Julia sitting on a milking stool peeling 
[111] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


potatoes. Now came the villain’s mad rush. Julia 
was seized savagely—with an arm around her neck, 
her head pulled back, her face kissed all over, her hair 
roughly tousled, her shoulder pushed hard, her stool 
kicked from under her as Louis, in a warwhoop of joy, 
hailed her as Ireland’s hope, Queen of the orchard, 
and was greatly pleased. 

Not so Erin’s daughter. Sitting broadly on the 
grass, shaking a clenched fist, she screamed: “Ye rat, 
ye vile spalpeen. To think o’ the likes o’ ye takin’ me 
unawares; and ye’ve upset the spuds and me pan of 
fresh water. May the divil fly away with ye. Get 
y’self out o’ here before I smash ye with the stool”; 
and Julia’s language became violent in a torrent of 
brogue, as, madly erect, she swung the stool and let fly 
while Louis danced about her singing an impudent 
Irish song he had learned from her. ‘Then Julia sat 
largely down again in the grass, gasping for breath, 
while Louis went for the distant stool. Grandpa 
passed that way, remarking simply: “Ah, I hear you 
and Julia are visiting today.’’ Louis walked up to 
Julia and said, ina manner: “Julia Head, I now pre- 
sent you with this stool. It is far less beautiful than 
yourself, but in its humble way, it is as useful as your 
own valued activities, inasmuch as it, on many an occa- 
sion, has served as your main stay while you were draw- 
ing from our gentle kine the day’s accumulations. Will 
you accept this emblem of industry in the same sim- 
plicity of spirit with which it is offered you?” Julia, 
tired of ranting, laughed. ‘‘Sure,” she said, ‘‘ ’tis well 
ye know that had ye come at me dacently, it’s a hearty 
welcome I’d a given ye.”” And she resumed operations, 
still sitting, the pan of spuds resting upon her enor- 


[ 112 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


mous thighs. And Louis sat down meekly beside her, 
his small hand barely touching the expanse of freckled 
arm. He said he was sorry, and went on to pacify her. 
He used Gaelic words she had taught him, words ro- 
mantically tender and sweet. Julia softened. With 
both hands she turned his face toward her; looked at 
him roguishly: 

“Now what the divil is it ye want?” 

“Julia, tell me a fairy story, won’t you? Justa little 
one, won't you, Julia?” 

“Divil a fairy tale there'll be told this day! ‘Tell me 
about Boston. I’ve a brother working there. I want 
ye to find how he’s getting on. His name’s Eugene 
Head. He’s younger than meself, he’s only here wan 
year. He’s tendin’ bar in a saloon on Tremont Street 
near King’s Chapel. I’ve heard he’s steady and don’t 
drink; and I’ve heard, too, that he knocks down quite 
a bit. Naw! I don’t mean that he knocks down peo- 
ple. I shouldn’t be talking such things t’ye anyway. 
It’s sorry I am I said a word. But Boston is a hell ye 
know.” 

Then Louis opened the subject nearest his heart. He 
told her all about the soldiers in faded blue, and the 
wives and children hanging to them. What did it all 
mean? Why was it so sad; why did he have to cry? 

“Well, Louis dear, ye know war’s a sad business; 
those men ye saw had just been mustered out of the 
army; they were good fighting men, but all tired out. 
From the shawls the women wore and the dirty childer, 
I know the whole crowd was Irish and poor; and as 
everyone knows, the Irish won the war. Think of it! 
Holy Virgin!—the Irish fighting for the naygers! 
What will it be next time?” 


Pabas 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


“But, Julia, what was it all for? What was back 
of it all?” 

“Tl not be telling ye what was back of it all, tho’ 
well I know. I’ll waste no breath on one who has no 
moind. Besides you’re too young and ye have no edu- 
cation. Ye wouldn’t understand. Why the divil don’t 
ye stick hard to yer books, and learn? What in the 
name of all the saints d’ye think your father is spend- 
ing his good money on ye furr? Filling yer belly with 
food, giving ye a good, clane bed to sleep in, putting 
nice clothes on ye, buying ye books, except that he 
wants ye to have an education? ‘The Irish are proud 
of education, and yer father’s a proud man, and he 
wants to be proud of his son. In God’s name why 
don’t ye do yure share? Ye remember the tale, I told 
ye of the man who looked too long at the moon? It’s 
a tender heart indade, ye had likewise to be lookin’ at 
thim dirty childer hangin’ to the mithers’ skirts! It’s a 
big heart ye had and a fine education ye have that ye 
didn’t think at wanst whin ye saw thim that ye haven't 
a care in the world, that ye’ve niver known rale hunger, 
niver a rale sorrow, niver a heart-break, niver despair; 
niver heard the wolf bark at the doore as yer blood 
went cold! And yerself, Louis, wid yere big heart and 
small head couldn’t see with yer own eyes and without 
any books at all, that thim very childer was part of 
what as ye say lies behind it all? God! me heart aches 
in the tellin; for the min ye saw come back wuz not all 
the min that wint out; but I’m through. I'll tell ye no 
more of what lies behind it all; but I'll tell ye some 
more about education, for I want to knock a bit of 
sinse into yure empty skull. Yere all sintiment, Louis, 
and no mercy. You've kissed the Blarney Stone right 


[ 114 ] 


fee PTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


well, and ye kicked the milking stool from under me. 

‘Now the story I’m to tell ye I got from one of me 
girl friends whose brother said he knew the man by 
reputayshun, and that he came from County Kerry 
where the Lakes of Killarney a’re I’ve told ye so 
mooch about, and I suppose ye’ve forgotten it all; and 
faith, | have me doubts, with yere scatter brains if ye 
can say fer a truth wither Ireland’s this side o’ the 
water or the other. Now its not meself as’ll make a 
short story long nor a long story short, so I’ll tell it in 
the words I heard it. 

“This man from Kerry was in some way connected 
with the army, as most of the Irish were, for they’re 
natural fighting min from the oldest times. And wan 
day as he was out a-walking fer his health, and faring 
to and fro, he came upon a blanket lying on the ground; 
and at once he picked it up and with great loud laughter 
he sed, sed he: Sure I’ve found me blanket with me 
name upon it: U fer Patrick and S for McCarty; sure 
edication’s a foine thing, as me faather before me wud 
say.” 

“Oh, Julia, I don’t believe that’s true. That’s just 
another Irish yarn.” 

“Will, maybe it isn’t true and maybe it’s just a yarn; 
but I belave it’s true and I want to till ye this; the man 
from Kerry had a rale edication. Ye may think I’m 
a-jokin’ now, but when ye get older and have more 
sinse yell be noticin’ that that’s the way everywan 
rades; and the higher educated they are, the more they 
rade just as Pat McCarty did, and add some fancy 
flourishes of their own. Now run along and carry in 
the wood, and do the chures. Me two feets is sore 
wid me weight. And take along the pans and the stool 


[115 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


as ye go. I suppose it’s the whole batch of yees [’ll 
have to be feedin’; and I’ve a blister on me small toe, 
and me back is broke with handlin’ the wash tubs; an’ 
it’s little patience I have with ye, furr ye don’t seem to 
learn in school or out, and yit, be the powers, ye ask 
some mighty quare questions for a lad, so I suppose 
there’s something in the back of yer head that makes 
yer father support ye when ye ought to be wurkin’.” 

And thus Julia grumbled on to the kitchen door and 
Louis did the chores. But his heart was not in them. 
Julia had told the story mockingly. She seemed to 
leave in it somewhere a sting he could feel but could 
not understand; and he mused as to what might per- 
haps be behind Julia, Irish to the core. She had set 
him vibrating at the suggestion of an unseen power and 
he became rigid in his resolve to penetrate the mystery 
that seemed to lie back of the tale she told. 


*K * *K 


Later on, say about the age of twelve, this same boy, 
to his own surprise, became aware that he had become 
interested in buildings; and over one building in par- 
ticular he began to rave, as he detached it from the 
rest and placed it in his wonder-world. It stood at the 
northeast corner of Tremont and Boylston Streets. It 
was a Masonic Temple built of hewn granite, light 
gray in tone and joyous of aspect. 

Boston, as a conglomerate of buildings, had depressed 
Louis Sullivan continuously since he became engulfed 
in it. These structures uttered to him as in chorus a 
stifling negation, a vast No!—to his yea-cry for the 
light-hearted. In their varied utterance, they were to 
him unanimous in that they denied the flowers of the 


Pal LSE) 


foie TORIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


field. Some were austere, some gave forth an offensive 
efluvium of respectability, some fronted the crowded 
street as though they had always been there and the 
streets had come later; some seemed to thank God that 
they were not as other buildings, while others sighed: 
I am aweary, aweary. Most of them were old and 
some very new; and individually they impressed 
Louis, in their special ways, as of an uncanny particular- 
ity. He seemed to feel them as physiognomies, as 
presences, sometimes even as personalities; thus the 
State House with its golden dome seemed to him a thin, 
mean, stingy old woman; while Park Street Church 
seemed to tower as a loyal guardian above its ancient 
graveyard, and as friendly monitor of the crowds be- 
low. And one day as they looked at Faneuil Hall, 
Grandpa said of it: “The Wild Ass of the City stamps 
above its head but cannot break its sleep.’’ This 
sounded thrilling and imaginary to Louis, like a wild 
thing out of Julia’s land of enchantment; but Grandpa 
said he got it out of a book and that its meaning was 
too deep for the boy—that he was talking to himself. 

Thus buildings had come to speak to Louis Sullivan 
in their many jargons. Some said vile things, some 
said prudent things, some said pompous things, but 
none said noble things. His history book told him that 
certain buildings were to be revered, but the buildings 
themselves did not tell him so, for he saw them with a 
fresh eye, an ignorant eye, an eye unprepared for so- 
phistries, and a mind empty of dishonesty. Neverthe- 
less, a vague sense of doleful community among build- 
ings slowly suffused him. They began to appear within 
his consciousness as a separate world in their way; a 
world of separated things seemed, in unison, to pass on 


Ee eat 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IVEa 


to him a message from an unseen power. ‘Thus im- 
mersed, he returned again and again to his wonder- 
building, the single one that welcomed him, the solitary 
one that gave out a perfume of romance, that radiated 
joy, that seemed fresh and full of laughter. How it 
gleamed and glistened in the afternoon sunlight. How 
beautiful were its arches, how dainty its pinnacles; how 
graceful the tourelle on the corner, rising as if by it- 
self, higher and higher, like a lily stem, to burst at last 
into a wondrous cluster of flowering pinnacles and a 
lovely, pointed finial. Thus Louis raved. It has been 
often said that love is blind! If Louis chose to liken 
this new idol of his heart unto a certain graceful elm 
tree, the pulchritudinous virgin of an earlier day, sure- 
ly that was his affair, not ours; for he who says that 
love is blind may be himself the blind—and love clair- 
voyant. 
* * a 


One day, on Commonwealth Avenue, as Louis was 
strolling, he saw a large man of dignified bearing, with 
beard, top hat, frock coat, come out of a nearby build- 
ing, enter his carriage and signal the coachman to drive 
on. ‘The dignity was unmistakable, all men of station 
in Boston were dignified; sometimes insistently so, but 
Louis wished to know who and what was behind the 
dignity. So he asked one of the workmen, who said: 

‘“Why he’s the archeetec of this building.” 

“Yes? and what is an archeetec, the owner?” 

‘‘Naw; he’s the man what drawed the plans for this 
building.” 

‘What! What’s that you say: drawed the plans for 
this building?” 

[118 J 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


“Sure. He lays out the rooms on paper, then makes 
a picture of the front, and we do the work under our 
own boss, but the archeetec’s the boss of everybody.” 

Louis was amazed. So this was the way: The 
workmen stood behind their boss, their boss stood be- 
hind the archeetec—but the building stood in front of 
them all. He asked the man if there had been an 
“archeetec’ for the Masonic Temple, and the man 
said: “Sure, there’s an archeetec for every building.”’ 
Louis was incredulous, but if it were true it was glori- 
ous news. How great, how wonderful a man must 
have been the “‘archeetec’”’ of his beloved temple! So 
he asked the man how the architect made the outside 
of the temple and the man said: ‘Why, he made it 
out of his head; and he had books besides.’’ “The 
‘books besides” repelled Louis: anybody could do that; 
but the “made it out of his head” fascinated him. 

How could a man make so beautiful a building out 
of his head? What a great man he must be; what a 
wonderful man. Then and there Louis made up his 
mind to become an architect and make beautiful build- 
ings ‘‘out of his head.’ He confined this resolve to 
the man. But the man said: 

“IT don’t know about that. You got to know a lot 
first. You got to have an education. Of course us 
mechanics has our books too. That’s the way we lay 
out stairs, rails and things like that. But you got to 
have more brains, more experience, more education 
and more books, especially more books, to be an arch- 
eetec. Can yer father keep yer at school long enough?” 

“Yes; he says he’ll keep me at school until I’m 
twenty-one if I wish.” 

“Well, that being so, yer may stand a chance of com- 


[ 119 3 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


ing out ahead, but I honestly don’t think yer have the 
right kind of brains. That far-away look in yer eyes 
makes me think yer won’t be practical, and y’ got to be 
practical. I’m a foreman and that’s as far as I'll get, 
and I’ve done work under a good many archeetecs; and 
some of them that’s practical ain’t much else. And 
some of them that’s fairly practical has so much edu- 
cation from books that they gets awful fussy, and are 
hard to get on with.” ‘The latter part of this mono- 
logue interested Louis rather faintly, for he’d made 
up his mind. He thanked the foreman who said in 
parting: ‘‘Well, I dunno—mebbe.”’ 


ok * *K 


Shortly before his father left Boston for Chicago, 
Louis confided to him his heart’s desire. The father 
seemed pleased, greatly pleased, that his son’s ambi- 
tion was centering on something definite. He “al- 
lowed,” as they used to say in New England, that 
Architecture was a great art, the mother of all the 
arts, and its practice a noble profession, adding a word 
or two about Michael Angelo. ‘Then he offered a 
counter proposal that made Louis gasp. It was none 
other than this: That Louis was fond of the farm and 
the open, that he had shown himself a natural farmer 
with ready mastery of detail of common farming. Why 
not go further. After proper preparation he would 
send Louis to an agricultural college, he said, and 
thus Louis would be equipped as a scientific farmer. - 
Louis was dazzled. The word scientific was electrical. 
Before him arose the woods, the fields, the cattle, the 
crops, the great grand open world as a narcotic phan- 
tom of delight. The father was eloquent concerning 


[ 120 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


blooded stock, plant cross-fertilization, the chemistry 
of soils and fertilizers, underdrainage, and so forth; 
Louis wavered. He sat long in silence, on his father’s 
knee, lost to the world. ‘Then he said: “NO: J have 
made up my mind.” 

And thus it was agreed that Louis should remain in 
Boston to complete his General Education; after that 
to a Technical School; and, some day—Abroad. 


*K ** > 


During the years preceding his decision, Louis, in 
practice, was essentially scatter-brained. His many 
and varied activities and preoccupations, physical, men- 
tal, emotional, his keen power of observation, his in- 
satiable hunger for knowledge at first hand, his tem: 
peramental responses to externals, his fleeting mystic 
trances, his utterly childlike flashes of intuition, his 
welcoming of new worlds, opening upon him one after 
another, his perception that they must grow larger 
and larger, his imagination, unknown to him as such; 
all these things, impenetrable to him in their vast sig- 
nificance within the gigantic and diverse world of men 
and things and thoughts and acts, a world as yet sealed 
tight to him; all these things seemed to exist within him 
formless, aimless, a disconnected miscellany rich in im- 
pulse but devoid of order, of form, of intention. 

Yet this was not precisely the fact. It was an 
ostensible fact, objectively, a non-fact, subjectively; for 
a presiding order, a primal impulse, was governing and 
shaping him through his own marvel at manifestations 
of power, his constant wonder at what men could do; 
at men’s power to do what they willed to do; and 
deeper than this moved a power he had heard in the 


es) 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN Tre 


Song of Spring, and which awakened within the glory 
of the sunrise. 

All this was vague enough, to be sure, but his 
memory was becoming tenacious and retroactive. 
Little given to introspection, as such, he was in daily 
conduct and appearance much like any boy, though 
perhaps he had a more stubborn will than is usual. 
His aversion from schools and books had been normal 
enough, becaused they failed in appeal. Nevertheless 
he began to swing around to an idea that there might 
be something useful to him in books, regardless of 
teachers; and this idea was vivified when he was trans- 
ferred to the new Rice Grammar School building, the 
lightness and brightness and cleanliness of which put 
him at once in exceeding good humor. 

True to form he reacted to these cheerful externals, 
and at once became filled with a new eagerness. A 
cloud seemed to pass away from his brain, a certain 
inhibition seemed to relax its hold upon him. As by 
the waving of a magic wand, he made a sudden swerve 
in his course, and became an earnest, almost fanatical 
student of books, in the light and joy of the new school- 
house. ‘Teachers were secondary; and in habit he be- 
came almost a recluse. For the idea had clarified that 
in books might be found a concentration, an increase 
in power; that books might be—and he later said they 
were—storehouses of what men had done, an explana- 
tion of their power to do, and that the specific knowl- 
edge stored within them might be used as tools of the 
mind, as men used tools of the hand. Louis saw con- 
sequences with extreme rapidity and daring once the 
first light of an initial idea broke upon him. His en- 
thusiasms were pramagtic. He lost no time, once he 
ple2et 


Pea POBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


saw an objective. His grammar-book in particular 
fascinated him. Here for the first time in all his 
schooling a light began to shine within a book and 
illumine his brain. Here opened up to him, ever more 
startling, ever more inspiriting, the structure of the 
language he spoke; its whys and wherefores. Here 
opened, ever enlarging, a world of things said, and to 
be said. The rigid rules became plastic as he pro- 
gressed, then they became fluent; grammar passed into 
romance; a dead book became a living thing. He could 
not go fast enough. When would he reach the end? 
And as the end approached nearer and nearer, there 
came forth from the book as a living presence, as a 
giant from the world of enchantment, with shining 
visage, man’s power of speech. Louis saw it all, but 
it left him feeble. He had taken grammar at one dose. 
As usual his imagination had far outsped any possi- 
bility of reasonable accomplishment. For Louis, as 
usual, saw too much at one time. He saw, at a glance, 
ends that would require a lifetime of disciplined en- 
deavor to reach. And so, in a measure, it was with his 
other studies, though not so ardently. There was lit- 
tle romance to be found in his arithmetic. It was in 
the main material and philistine. Yet he saw use in 
it. He accepted it as a daily task and plodded. It 
was not his fault but his misfortune that it was handed 
to him dry. Geography he took to kindly. He could 
visualize it as a diagram and it extended, on paper, his 
boundaries far and wide. ‘Topographically and racially 
he could not see into it, even though he was informed, 
for instance, that the Japanese and Chinese were half- 
civilized. He asked what civilized meant and was told 
that we were civilized. There were various other 


[ 123 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


things in the geography that were not clear; he found 
difficulty in making images of what he saw in the book. 
In his history book he was lied to shamefully, but he 
did not know it. Anyway, he had to take some things 
on faith. The history book did not interest him greatly 
because the people described did not seem human like 
the people he knew, and the story was mostly about 
wars. He got the idea that patriotism always meant 
fighting, and that the other side was always in the 
wrong. 

As to compositions, the pupils had to write one every 
so often, on a given topic. The first subject for Louis 
was “The Battle of Hastings.’”’ He went at this dole- 
fully, sought refuge in the encyclopedia, and in wabbly 
English produced a two-page essay weakly-hesitant and 
_valueless; a mere task. He was marked low. The 
next subject was “A Winter Holiday in Boston.” 
Louis filled the air with snowflakes, merry bells, laugh- 
ter, movement and cross movement, amusing episodes 
and accidents, all joyous, all lively. In simple boyish 
English, he made a hearty story of it, a word-picture; 
yes, the suggestion even of a prose poem, for it had 
structure. Within it was a dominant idea of winter 
that conveyed a sensation of color, of form. Louis was 
happy. He had hard work to confine himself to four 
pages. He was marked high. He was commended be- 
fore the class. But the topics seldom fired him; as a 
rule they were academic, arid, artificial, having no re- 
lation to his life experiences, concerning which he might 
have said something worth while had he been given 
the chance. Another feature of the curriculum that 
went against the grain with Louis was the course in 
declamation, or “speaking pieces.”’ For Louis had a 
[ 124 ] 


me AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


streak of bashfulness in his make-up, which, though in- 
visible in his former street fights, came painfully into 
view when he must face the class and “speak out loud.”’ 
The ensuing torture of self-consciousness made him 
angry and rebellious. Besides, he had his opinions con- 
cerning various ‘‘pieces’” and was not in the least back- 
ward in venturing them. He ridiculed the ‘Village 
Blacksmith” unmercifully. 

His pet aversion was “Old Ironsides,” and it befell 
one day that he was to speak this very piece. As he 
approached the platform, he saw red; the class was in- 
visible, no bashfulness now; teacher even, scarcely 
visible. His mind was made up; he mounted the plat- 
form, faced about; and in instant desperate acrimony, 


The class roared; teacher stopped him at once; sent 
him to his seat. She left the room. Louis boiled in his 
seat. In the hubbub he heard: “Now yer going to 
Gert, — serves yer right.” ‘Yer made a fool of 
tedcier. -oetves yer right.” ‘‘Fatty’ll fix yer.” The 
teacher, Miss Blank, returning, stilled the storm, and 
said calmly: “Louis Sullivan, you are wanted in Mr. 
Wheelock’s office.’ Mr. Wheelock, head master— 
called ‘‘Fatty” for short—was round, of middle height, 
kindly, with something of the cherub in his face. He 
wore a blond beard, had rather high color, merry blue 
eyes, a full forehead, sparsely covered with hair. He 
appeared not over thirty-five, had served in the army, 
and was judicial, considerate and human in his dealings. 

As Louis entered he saw, not this Mr. Wheelock, 
but a Mr. Wheelock, gray of face, sinister of eye, hold- 
ing in his left hand a long rattan. ‘Miss Blank tells 


[ 125 J 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


me you have grossly insulted her before the class. What 
have you to say for yourself?” 

Louis was fearless and aggressive by nature. He 
had crossed his Rubicon. He made a manly apology, 
wholly sincere as regarded Miss Blank. ‘This cleared 
the ground but not the issue. He saw the rattan, and 
with steady eye and nerve he quickly wove about it his 
plan of action. The rod should never touch him; it 
was to be a battle of wits. He boldly made his open- 
ing with the statement that he regarded the poem as 
bunkum. Mr. Wheelock sneered. He then went on 
to take the poem to pieces, line by line, stanza by 
stanza. Mr. Wheelock looked puzzled; he eyed Louis 
quizzically. He edged about in his chair. Louis went 
on, more and more drastically. Mr. Wheelock’s eyes 
began to twinkle, calm returned to his face, he dropped 
the rod. He laughed heartily: ‘“‘Where in the world 
did you dig that up?” Then Louis let go, he waxed 
eloquent, he spread out his views—so long suppressed; 
he pleaded for the open, for honesty of thought for the 
lifting of a veil that hid things, for freedom of thought, 
for the right of interpretation, for freedom of utter- 
ance. He passionately unbosomed his longings. The 
head master, now sitting chin in hand, looked steadily 
at Louis, with grave, sad face. As Louis ceased, the 
master remained silent for a moment, then pulled him- 
self together, relaxed, chuckled, and patting Louis on 
the shoulder said: ‘“That was a pretty fine stump-speech, 
young man. When you got through with Holmes, you 
left his poem as tattered as his ensign. A\s for the rest: 
Irish accounts for that. I’m glad we had it out though. 
I might have thrashed you in anger. Go back to your 
class now, and hereafter be considerate of a woman’s 


[ 126 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


feelings.’’ Louis returned to his room; before all the 
class he made full amends. ‘Then, in his seat, he set 
to with a book. His plunge into grammar had not 
been in vain. 

Thus Louis worked on and on, all by himself, as it 
were, digging into the solid vein of knowledge as a 
solitary miner digs; washing the alluvial sands of knowl- 
edge as a miner sifts—a young prospector grub-staked 
by an absentee provider now settled on the shores of 
a vast Lake far in the West. 

Living again with his grandparents Louis felt at 
home once more. He had respites from the city bare- 
ness and baldness. He studied in the evenings, in the 
sitting room, unmindful of the family doings. He lost 
interest in playmates; waved aside all little girls as 
nuisances and inferior creatures—they became non-ex- 
istent. He rose early, at all seasons and in all weathers, 
before the family were awake, walked the mile to the 
depot, took the train to Boston, walked a mile to break- 
fast and another mile to school. Many a night he was 
awakened by the rattling sash, and listened to the sharp 
wind moaning, groaning, shrieking, whistling through 
the crevices with many a siren rise and fall, from the 
depths of sorrow to the heights of madness, from 
double forte to piannissimo as this weird orchestra of 
the countryside lulled him again to sleep. And many a 
morning, in pitch darkness, he lit his little lamp, broke 
the skin of ice at the pitcher’s top, washed in arctic 
waters, donned his clothing, neatly folded over a chair 
as Grandmamma had taught him—his stockings even, 
carefully turned in for orderliness, then left the house 
still in darkness and silence, to break his way, it may 
be, through fresh-fallen snow, knee-deep on the level, 


Ut27 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


and as yet without a trail, his woolen cap drawn down, 
his woolen mittens well on, his books bound with a 
leather strap, held snug under the arm of his pea- 
jacket as the dim light at the depot shone nearer, and 
a distant double-toot announced the oncoming train, 
and the blinding headlight that shortly roared into 
view as he stood, waiting, on the platform. 

Yet this was not heroism, but routine. It was an 
accepted part of the day’s doings, accepted without a 
murmur of other thought in days long since gone by. 

Thus Louis worked, in gluttonous introspection, as 
one with a fixed idea, an unalterable purpose, whose 
goal lay beyond the rim of his horizon, and beyond 
the narrow confines of the casual and sterile thought of 
the day. Hence Louis was bound to be graduated with 
honors, as he was, the following June of 1870. ‘There 
and then he received in pride, as a scholar, his first 
and last diploma. Never thereafter did he regard life 
with the gravity, the seriousness and the futility of a 
cloistered monk. ‘That summer, he spent part of vaca- 
tion time on the farm, and part of it within the prime- 
val forest of Brown’s Track in the northern part of 
the State of New York. On his return to Boston in 
September, he passed the examinations, and at the age 
of fourteen entered the English High School, in Bed- 
ford Street—there to expand. 


By 


CHAPTER: VITT 


Louis Goeth on a Journey 


ARLY in the summer of ’70, Henri List felt 
3 an impelling desire to visit his second daughter, 

Jennie, whom he had not seen in a number of 
years. In 1862, she was married to a certain Walter 
Whittlesey, a contracting railway engineer, and they 
lived on 300-acre farm at Lyons Falls, N. Y. On 
the 29th day of February, 1864, she added to the 
world’s population a daughter, in due time named 
Anna, under Presbyterian auspices. Mrs. Whittlesey 
at the time we are considering, was 34 years of age— 
one year younger than her sister, Andrienne, greatly 
beloved mother of Louis Sullivan. When Henri List’s 
desire had ripened into a resolve and was so announced, 
there was “the devil to pay,’”’ as was said at times in 
those days. Louis became frantic. He must go too. 
He, also, had not seen his T'ante Jennie in many years. 
He must see where she lived and how she lived. He 
must see his dear little cousin Anna, and Uncle Walter 
too. He must see the farm, and the river and the 
great waterfall. 

‘Grandpa, I have never seen a waterfall, only in 
pictures, and in pictures they don’t move and they don’t 
roar; I want to live with a real waterfall; and I want 
to see the Berkshire Hills; and the Hudson; you know, 
Grandpa, pictures don’t give you any real idea; why 
Grandpa, a picture of a tree isn’t anything at all when. 
you see a real tree, like our great Ash at Cowdry’s; 
and to think, Grandpa, I’ve never been farther away 
than Newburyport; take me with you, Grandpa. I 


[ 129 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


want to see something big; everything in Boston and 
Wakefield has grown so small; we are so shut in; my 
geography says there are big things as you go west, 
that outdoors gets bigger and bigger; I want to go 
Grandpa; now is the time; I may never have another 
chance.” 

Grandpa, at first was angry and obdurate. He 
thought only of what a pest, of what a continuous 
nuisance his growing grandson would be, and the 
thought became a nightmare; for Henri List, con- 
forming to custom, was growing older, was acquiring 
nerves; his easy-going humor showed occasional thin 
spots of temper. He roared at the “dear little Cousin 
Anna’”’ business, but the possible significance of the 
pleadings concerning a “‘shut-in life’ and “big things 
as you go west” dawned upon him, grew stronger, and 
he came finally to believe that what he had heard was 
not altogether boyish nonsense but a rising cry for ex- 
pansion, a defining hunger for larger vision, bigger 
things; that his grandson, as it were, was outgrowing 
his cocoon. Upon second and third thoughts he agreed; 
whereupon the few remaining sane ones also agreed 
that Louis needed kennel, collar and chain. 

The day came. They departed via the Boston and 
Albany Railway in the evening. Sleepless, restive, 
Louis awaited, as best he might, the coming of the 
Berkshire Hills into his growing world. He knew 
he would see them near dawn. ‘The hour came; he 
entered the foothills and began winding among them, 
as with labored breath the engines, like heavy draft 
horses, began a steady pull, the train dragging reluc- 
tantly into steadiness as succeeding hills grew taller— 
with Louis eagerly watching. The true thrill of action 


[ 130 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


began with the uprearing of imposing masses as Louis 
clung to the solid train now purring in the solitudes 
in ever-lengthening swings—deep valleys below—until, 
amid mists and pale moon gleaming, arose the mighty 
Berkshires, their summits faint and far, their immensi- 
ties solemn, calm, seeming eternal in the ghostly fog 
in the mild shimmer, clad in forests, uttering great 
words, runic words revealing and withholding their 
secret to a young soul moving as a solitary visitant, 
even as a wraith among them, the engines crying: “‘We 
will!’ the mountains replying: ‘“We will!” to an ex- 
panding soul listening within its own mists, its own 
shimmering dream, to the power without and within, 
amid the same echoes within and without, bereft of 
words to reply, a bare hush of being, as though through 
mists of mind and shimmer of hope, SUBLIMITY, in 
revelation, had come to one wholly unprepared, had 
come to one as a knock on the door, had come to one 
who had known mountains only in books. And Louis 
again, in wonder, felt the power of man. ‘The thought 
struck deep, that what was bearing him along was 
solely the power of man; the living power to wish, 
to will, to do. That man, in his power, with broad 
stride, had entered the regioned sanctity of these tow- 
ering hills and like a giant of Elfinland had held 
them in the hollow of his hand. He had made a path, 
laid the rails, builded the engines that others might 
pass. Many saw engines and rails, and pathway, and 
one saw what lay behind them. In the murky mist 
and shimmer of moon and dawn, a veil was lifted in 
the solitude of the Berkshires. Louis slept, his nerves 
becalmed, amid the whistle’s sonorous warnings, the 
silence of the engine, the long, shrill song of the brakes, 


[131 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 2h ee 


with mingling echoes, as the train, with steady pace, 
wound slowly downward toward the Hudson, leaving 
the Berkshires to their silence and their solitude—and 
Louis slept on, under the wand of the power of man. 

They reached Albany in broad daylight. The Hud- 
son, to Louis’s dismay, did not impress him as greatly 
as he had hoped and believed it would. Its course was 
straight instead of broadly curving, and the clutter 
of buildings along its western flank seemed to belittle 
it. It appeared to him as a wide waterway, not un- 
pleasant of its kind. It seemed to lack what Louis 
had come to believe the character of a river. The 
bridge crossing it, with its numberless short spans and 
lack of bigness, beauty and romance he gazed upon 
in instant disdain. It appeared to creep, cringing and 
apologetic, across the wide waters which felt the humi- 
liation of its presence. 

Yet he received a shock of elation as the train had 
moved slowly along the bridge, carrying him with it; 
and as he gazed downward upon flowing waters, again 
he marvelled at what men could do; at the power of 
men to build; to build a bridge so strong it would 
carry the weight of a great train, even with his own 
precious and conscious weight added thereto. And 
Louis mused about the bridge; why was it so mean, 
so ugly, so servile, so low-lived? Why could not a 
bridge perform its task with pride? Why was not 
a proud bridge built here? Was not New York a great 
state? Was it not called in his geography ‘““The Em- 
pire State’? Was not Albany the Capital City of 
that state? Then why so shabby an approach? Was 
not the broad Hudson figuratively a great aqueous 
frontier between Massachusetts and New York, each 


[ 132 ] 


Pepe LOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


state proud in sovereignty? And was not this bridge 
a presumptive greeting between sovereign states? For 
surely, the railroad train came straight from proud 
Boston to exalted Albany? And a veil lifted as there 
came to his mind a striking verse he had read: 


“Why were they proud? 
A gain I cry aloud 

Why in the name of glory 
Were they proud?” 


And there came up also to him the saying: “By 
their fruits ye shall know them,”’ as, lost in imagery, 
he visioned forth the great Bay State, saluting the 
great Empire State, saying solemnly: The Sovereign 
State of Massachusetts greets the Sovereign State of 
New York. Let this noble bridge we herewith present 
you be a sign and a bond of everlasting amity between 
us, even as Almighty God proclaimed unto Noah of 
old and his sons: ‘I do set my bow in the cloud, and 
it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and 
the earth.’ ‘Thus Louis, ruminating rather fiercely, 
wished to know what was behind the pestiferous bridge. 
He keenly felt that man’s amazing power to do, should, 
in all decency and all reason, be coupled with Romance 
in the deed. And even more keenly he felt, as his 
eyesight cleared, that this venomous bridge was a be- 
trayal of all that was best in himself, a denial of all 
that was best in mankind. 

That day they took the New York Central train for 
Utica. After traversing the roughage, the Mohawk 
Valley opened to them its placid beauty as in welcome 
to a new land. And to Louis it was in verity a new 
land, known to him up to this very present hour as a 


PRR 4 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


geographical name—an abstraction—unknown to him 
and wholly unimagined, in its wealth of open rarity, 
its beauteous immensity of atmosphere. Here was 
freedom; here was expanse! Louis ranged with his 
eyes from near to far, following the sweep of the val- 
ley floor from the Mohawk to the distant low-flowing 
hills, and to and fro caressingly; and as mile after 
mile of valley passed by, and again mile upon mile 
Louis’s peaceful mind passed into wonder that such an 
open world could be; and now he marvelled, not at 
man’s power and his works, but at the earth itself, 
and a reverential mood claimed him for its own, as 
he began in part to see with his own calm eyes what 
Mother Earth, in her power, had done in her varied 
moods, and to surmise as best he could what more 
she had done that he knew not of. And all this while 
the Mohawk wound its limpid way, gentle as all else; 
and Louis, softening into an exquisite sympathy, cast 
his burden upon the valley, and there he found rest; 
rest from overintrospection, rest from overconcentra- 
tion; freed from suppression and taboo. 

Thus Louis became freshened with new growth as 
a tree in spring, and a new resilience came to take 
the place of the old. He was cleansed as by a storm, 
and purified as by fire; but there was no storm, no 
fire, no whirlwind—there arose from the valley a still, 
small voice, and Louis heard the voice and recognized 
it as his own returning to him, and he was overjoyed 
and strengthened in his faith and became as one trans- 
lated into the fresh, free joy of living; for in this 
valley, this wilderness of light and earth he had found 
surcease. 

Louis turned to Grandpa, whom he found dozing. 


[ 134 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


The hills were coming together; a lurch of the train 
awakened Grandpa; he regarded Louis with a lazy 
smile and asked him if he had found the “‘big things,” 
and how about the “‘shut-in life.’ Louis at once over- 
flowed concerning the Berkshires, the Hudson, and the 
Bridge, but said not a word about the valley—that 
was sacred. When he had finished, Grandpa’s face 
spread into one of those grimaces that Louis knew 
but too well as a preliminary to speech; and Grandpa 
said: “‘As to your bridge, young man, I know nothing; 
as to the Hudson, you know nothing; as to your Berk- 
shires, they are an impertinence.”’ 

Grandpa was an incorrigible tease. With inward 
chuckle, with sweet, succulent sinfulness, he gazed his 
fill upon a crestfallen face, knowing the while how 
quickly and how well he could restore its color; then, 
having gloated long enough, he, as always, relented— 
but slowly, for effect, he began: ‘Louis, what good 
does the study of your stupid geography do you? Sup- 
pose you can bound all the states, you haven’t an 
idea of what the states are. You see a crooked black 
line on your map and it is marked such or such a 
river; what do you know about that river? Have 
your teachers ever told you anything of value about a 
river? Any river? MHave they ever told you that 
there are rivers and rivers each with its special char- 
acter? Have they ever given you a word-picture of 
a river, so that you might at least summon up an 
image of it, however short of reality? ‘They have 
not. They can not. They are not inspired. They are 
victims of routine, wearied on the daily treadmill until 
they can no longer see into the heart of a child. Now, 
I have watched you since you were a babe in arms, 


[135] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF Anti 


and I have mostly let you alone for fear of meddling 
with nature’s work; for you were started right by 
my daughter, the mother who carried you and yearned 
for you. She is sound to the core. She alone of my 
children might fittingly wear the red cap of liberty. 
Yet you do not know your own mother. J know you. 
I know your abominable selfishness—come from your 
father; and your generosity and courage—come from 
my proud daughter. You have a God-given eye and a 
dull heart. You are at one and ‘the: samevames 
credibly industrious and practical, and a dreamer of 
morbid dreams, of mystic dreams, sometimes clean, 
brilliant dreams, but these are too rare. 

‘“What you have said, from time to time, concerning 
man’s power to do, has astounded and frightened me, 
coming from you. That idea you never got from any 
of us. There shines the light of the seer, of the prophet, 
leading where ?—to salvation or destruction? I dare 
not think how that flame may grow into conflagration, 
or mellow into a world-glow of wisdom. But I know, 
worst of all, that adolescence is at hand; that you are 
in grave danger of a shake-up. Hard work and clear 
straight thinking may pull you through; that is my 
sincere hope. I regret, now, having spoken harshly: 
I did not intend to, but one thought led to another as 
a river flows. Now let us return to earth and I will 
tell you about the Hudson.” 

Then Grandpa, aroused to eloquence, made a splen- 
did, flowing, word-picture of the Hudson, from Al- 
bany to the sea, that brought out all the rare qual- 
ities of his fine mind, and so aroused Louis that he 
made the journey with him—lost to all else. Just 
then the train slowed up and came to a full stop. 


[ 136 ] 


Pore A2ULOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


Louis looked out of the window. ‘They were in a 
ravine, with high walls of rock, jagged and wild, and 
through this gorge came dashing, plunging, swirling, 
sparkling, roaring over the ledges in cascade after cas- 
cade, laughing and shouting in joy, the same Mohawk 
River that had flowed as gently as the footstep of a 
veiled nun, through the long, quiet valley they had 
traversed. Louis was exultant, he leaped from the 
train, waved his hat, and in spirit sang with the waters 
the song of joy. The bell clanged its warning note, 
Louis was aboard with a swing, and as the train moved 
on, from the rear platform he waved his farewell to 
Little Falls. 

They soon arived at Utica; and Grandpa, who had 
begun to feel the fatigue of the journey; announced 
that they would spend the night there in order to be 
fresh on the morrow. Louis, still restless, took a long, 
evening stroll. Utica had not impressed him. It 
seemed staid and somnolent, giving out an air of old 
and settled complacence, differing however, in kind and 
quality, from that of New England. So he strolled; 
his thoughts reverting to Grandpa and his extraordi- 
nary monologue; and for the first time, since he had 
begun think such thoughts, he asked himself, what 
lies hidden behind Grandpa? 


Se See: 


The Black River at that time flowed irregularly 
northward, as presumably it does today. Originating 
in hills not far northeast of Utica, it finally, after 
much argument with the lay of the land, debouched 
into Lake Ontario, not far beyond Watertown. About 
midway in its course it picked up the Moose River, 


[ 137] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


and a short distance beyond their junction broke into 
a rough and tumble waterfall of perhaps forty feet 
descent, beyond which, its surface at first much ruffled, 
it went smoothly on its way as far as the eye could 
comfortably follow. The water-tumult was named 
Lyons Falls. Near the falls, on a narrow flat, close 
to the west bank of the river, sat dismally, in true 
American style, in the prevailing genius of ugliness, a 
hamlet or village, also called Lyons Falls. It was oc- 
cupied at the time by what were then known as human 
beings and was the terminus of a canal, already in 
decay, that had somehow found its way from the city 
of Rome. At a level higher than the village flat, ran, 
substantially north and south, a railway, named, if 
memory serves, the Rome, Carthage & Watertown. 
During what time the village had served as the termi- 
nus of the railway, it flourished; when the line moved 
on, the village drooped and withered into what has 
eminently been set forth as a state of innocuous desue- 
tude. At the station was a dirt road at right angles 
to the railroad, that quickly fell around a curve down, 
to the village. To the westward, however, it ran 
straight as a section line over the hills and vanished. 

From the railway station the ascent was gradual 
for a space, and at a distance, say of a hundred yards 
from the railway, and close to the northern side of 
the dirt road, rested the home of Walter Whittlesey, 
a rather modern structure for that day, surrounded by 
spruce trees that looked as though they had been 
dragged there and chained. Across the road from the 
family residence was the ice house, secreted in a lovely 
and refreshing glen of wildwood; at a decorous dis- 
tance northeast of the “Mansion” was a big barn 


[ 138 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


with its out-buildings, all in a state of dilapidation, 
and adjacent thereto was a worn and weary apple 
orchard, lichen-covered and rheumatic with age. Be- 
yond this orchard was sheer stubble over a vast acreage. 

Not very far west of the house, however, was a 
charming valley, quite incidentally berthed between 
the looming earth-billows. Throughout the length of 
this ever-to-be-hallowed spot busily ran a rivulet to 
the encouragement of a swath of herbage, and of thank- 
ful shrubbery clinging to its edges. Part way up the 
western slope was a long horizontal out-cropping of 
limestone ledge, along which, in comparative safety, 
grew a slender grove of tall, hardwood trees, with in- 
viting undergrowth. One cannot drive a plow through 
a limestone ledge, and it is too much trouble to drain 
a low spot where there are plenty of hills. The grove- 
land paid its rent in firewood, the rivulet paid no 
rent at all,—thus were they tolerated in their beauty. 
Hay was the general crop. 

The Black River was crossed by a wagon bridge at 
a point between the Moose River and the falls. The 
road continued on to Lyonsdale. This same Black 
River gave an impression of performing a bold, high- 
handed deed. It split its territory sharply in halves. 
From its left bank rose wave upon wave of smooth 
hills mounting to a high plateau, while, as sharply 
from its right bank spread a huge, somber, primeval 
hemlock forest, mounting in turn upon its hills beyond 
the range of vision. Out of this forest rushed the 
Moose River, its waters icy and dark. Into this forest 
ran no road for long. The Black River appeared to 
have done this big, high-handed act; but the recur- 
rence of the name Lyons, and the presence of a baronial 


[ 139 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


seat at Lyonsdale, just within the edge of the forest, 
might have offered a diverging explanation to one in- 
tent upon what lies beyond appearances. However, 
such was the lay of the land. 

The train bearing Grandpa and Louis, after the 
preliminary whistle and bell clanging of ceremony, 
slowed up at the station. Grandpa, clean shaven, 
erect, aglow, descended with dignity; Louis, somewhat 
begrimed because of his fixed belief that the place 
for his head lay outside the car window, jumped after 
him, already excited by the Black River. He wanted 
to investigate everything at once or immediately; oh, 
—yes—he must kiss T'ante Jennie. 

They were greeted at the station by Walter Whit- 
tlesey, a sizeable man, swarthy, grave, full bearded— 
black sprinkled with gray, wearing the wide felt hat 
of a landowner who knew horses. He had given in- 
structions, and had so notified Grandpa, that all baggage 
and luggage would be cared for, extraneously, by 
menials. He was a calm, courteous man, whose bear- 
ing suggested a lineage of colonels on horseback, blue 
grass, bourbon, blooded stock, beauteous women, and 
blacks. : 

The three walked leisurely up the road, to the white 
house with green blinds where Tante Jennie, other- 
wise Mrs. Jenny List Whittlesey, awaited them with 
the reserve of a gentlewoman whom long practice had 
enabled to speak with delicate precision in a voice 
scarcely audible, and to inhale her smiles. 

As the trio mounted the steps leading to the ver- 
anda, Louis in his rough and ready way casually no- 
ticed, not far from the doorway, a young lady re- 
clining in an easy chair, quietly rocking, deeply absorbed 


[ 140 ] 


Perea ORIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


in a book. Scarcely had he entered the open door 
but she had affirmed: ‘I’m going like that boy.” 

Within the “spare room” of the house, Grandpa 
folded his daughter in fervent arms, kissed her with 
the profound affection of an ageing father, and wept. 
Auntie did not weep; she amiably returned her father’s 
greeting, and said something in very pure French that 
seemed to satisfy. Louis went through the perform- 
ance, awkwardly, and as hastily as possible. Auntie 
gave him the dry kiss of superculture and assured him 
in very pure English of her gratification at his arrival 
within her home. 

Louis at the earliest moment escaped to the veranda. 
He had forgotten all about the young lady, and was 
startled and abashed to find her still there, gently 
rocking, absorbed in her book. Before he could re- 
treat she arose in greeting with a smile known other- 
where only in Paradise; she said in glee: ‘“My name is 
Minnie! I am eighteen, and a ‘young lady’ now. Oh 
Louis! I have waited for you so impatiently, and 
here you are at last. I am sure we shall like each 
other; don’t you think we will? I’m in society in 
Utica and I’m going to tell you lots of things. See, 
I wear long skirts and do up my hair, but I can’t 
climb trees any more; isn’t that a shame? But I’ll 
run races with you and we'll have lots of fun; and 
PH tell you all about the books I’ve read and all 
about society. Here I’ve been for a month reading 
French books and speaking French with Aunt Jenny 
and have grown weary of myself; now you and I are 
to be chums! Don’t you think you'll like me?” 

And Louis, taken thus unawares, and thus caressed 
with words, dared at last to look into gray Scotch 


[141] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


eyes that seemed endowed with an endless fund of 
merriment, of badinage, of joy, of appeal, of kindness, 
and saturated with an inscrutable depth beyond all of 
these. He gazed steadily at a tender face, narrow, 
tapering, slender, and very pale, delicately freckled; 
at nostrils trembling; at a wide thin-lipped super- 
sensitive mouth; at large ears; at thin, vagrant, dark, 
sandy hair; at a sprightly medium figure, all alive. 
She was clad in dark blue silk. He found in her 
not beauty but irresistible pervading charm. As he 
was thus absorbed Minnie said: ‘‘Sit down beside me, 
Louis dear, and watch me die. Sit very still and 
watch.”’ Whereupon, leaning back in her easy chair, 
she closed her eyes, deepened her pallor, closed her 
nostrils, made a thin line of her mouth, elongated her 
face, and lay deathly still, as though in veritable rigor 
mortis, until Louis’s nerves were on edge. ‘Then, still 
dead and rigid, the fine line indicating her closed lips 
slowly widened across her face, the thin lips parting 
slightly as of themselves, cadaverously, the teeth also, 
a little later; after a seemingly endless wait, from 
this baleful rictus there came out moans, wails, gurgles, 
the ears began to crawl as of themselves. Then of 
a sudden the corpse sat bolt upright, with wide glar- 
ing eyes, grasped Louis by the shoulders and in fierce, 
frothy words forecast for him the direst of misfortunes 
by sea and land. Then she patted Louis’s pale cheek, 
fell back into her chair and giggled softly, casting at 
Louis the funniest, merriest, glances. ‘How old are 
you, Louis?” “Fourteen.” ‘Oh, I knew that. I 
asked your auntie. But isn’t it lovely, fourteen and 
eighteen; fourteen and eighteen!—and to think that I 
have died for you, and have come back to you! 


[ 142 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


‘Tomorrow we'll go to church. The new minister’s 
a rather nice chap. I like to hear him pray, he’s so 
genteel about it; and he’s sound in doctrine, so your 
auntie says, and you know she’s a blue Presbyterian.”’ 
And Minnie immediately took Louis under her wing. 

Next day she took him to church, leading him by 
a string, as it were, set him down beside her in the 
family pew, and their whisperings mingled with other 
whisperings in the repressive silence. Then the min- 
ister appeared in the pulpit, a fairly young man with 
mien and countenance betoking earnestness, piety and 
poverty. Louis thought he prayed well, as with quiet 
fervor he set forth his belief that God was within 
his temple, and assuredly within the hearts of his flock. 
When it came to the sermon, Louis sat up straight 
and took eager notice, for the good man had just read 
from the big Bible this text: “And the Lord went 
before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them 
on the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give 
them light to go by day and night.’’ Louis needed 
no sermon; in a flash he knew that all his life he had 
been led in by a pillar of gleaming cloud, and a pillar 
of fire; and his far-reaching instant vision forecast it 
would be thus until the end. Yet he took much heart 
in listening to the youngish man in the pulpit grasp 
the totality of this simple story, transmute it into a 
great symbol, and in impassioned voice lift it to the 
heights of idealism and of moral grandeur, refashion- 
ing it into a spiritual pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire 
ever present in the hearts, the minds, the souls of all 
humans, as he urgently, yea, piteously, besought the 
blind to see. 

As they walked home Minnie remarked that it was 


[ 143 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


an extra-fine sermon, but as Louis did not reply she 
scented danger and tactfully chatted about little things, 
until her joyous sweetness detached him from his pillar 
of ravishing cloud and the pillar of wondrous fire. 
Soon she had him laughing as gaily as herself and 
plucking wayside flowers for her. For Minnie was 
intuitive to a degree. She knew that Louis had been 
deeply stirred, that he had been dreaming somberly as 
they left the church: and this she would not counte- 
nance. She believed that if one must dream it should 
be of happiness, and the dreamer wide awake to the 
joy of living. They sat for a while by the falls, but 
Louis was not content. There seemed to be something 
purposeless in this clumsy tumbling about of dark wa- 
ters, losing their balance, falling helplessly over ledges 
and worn boulders, lost in their way among them, 
and reeling absurdly off at the bottom. It all seemed 
to lack order and singleness of purpose. Near the 
falls was a small wooden mill afflicted with the rickets, 
and this alone seemed in tune with the falls. 

So they trudged home and Aunt Jenny said the 
blessing. Grandpa had just returned from a long walk, 
his favorite pastime—fifteen or twenty miles—noth- 
ing for him. It became his daily habit. He always 
went barehead, always got lost and always found his 
way back. 

Next day Minnie told Louis, in confidence, she 
knew of a charming spot not very far away, where 
there were ledges of rock and tall trees, and a darling 
rivulet with green along its banks. She took him there, 
and would not even let him help her over the lichen 
and moss covered rocks. With Louis in tow she found 
a shady spot, with ferns and undergrowth forming a 


[ 144 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


nook, and the wide-branching trees a canopy. She 
had taken books with her, and on a large, ancient stone 
which she called her pulpit, she perched with her slave. 
Below them ran the rivulet, and above the opposite 
crest there showed a bit of the roof of the dwelling. 
Minnie clapped her hands with joy. ‘Louis, don’t you 
think I’m good to bring you here? It is the solitary 
oasis in this desert of hayland. There is hay, hay, 
hay, for miles.”’ 

Presently she opened a book and read from Tenny- 
son, making her selections carefully varied, feeling her 
way through Louis’s responses to see where she could 
reach his heart, how she could bare it, and then keep 
her secret. She read from Byron, recited many other 
poems with a skill unknown to elocutionists, and a 
stealthy, comfortable look came into her eyes now 
turned green, her face wreathed in a Mona Lisa smile, 
as she said: “Louis, this is a great, beautiful, good 
world if but we knew it, and to this very spot I have 
often come in thankful mood, and from this very 
pulpit prayed to these trees to make me pure in heart.” 
And then she told Louis about the many books she 
had read, largely French novels—for practice, she said; 
and then Louis told her he had read all of Captain 
Mayne Reid’s books, all the Leather Stocking Tales, 
some by Maryatt, and some wonderful and beautiful 
stories in the Bible; and he recited for her, verbatim, 
the story of Elijah, the whirlwind, and the still small 
voice. 

The smile on Minnie’s pale face became luxurious, 
her gleaming eyes about to close, as she said half-warn- 
ingly: “Louis, Louis, you are in danger!” and refused 
to explain. Then suddenly coming to herself she 


[ 145 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


cried: “We must go back to the house at once; if we 
are late at supper, your auntie will give me just one 
look, and I will know exactly what that one look 
means; but you won’t.”’ And she took Louis by the 
hand, her books under the other arm, resumed her 
jaunty mood and led him to the house, delivering to 
his Auntie a human package not merely stirred, but 
churned into butter and whey. 

Auntie again said grace; the thoughts of all bowed 
heads but hers were on supper. ‘The evening was 
spent by the family on the dark veranda singing old- 
fashioned hymns; after which the peace of night came 
over all—but one. 

Next day, Minnie, repentant of her wickedness, ap- 
peared as a fresh blown morning glory, gave hearty, 
cheerful greetings to all, and to Louis talked as might 
an ordinarily affectionate sister. Her eyes were crys- 
talline, her carriage buoyant. Then, at the appointed 
time, she began her hour of French with Auntie; and 
as Louis, nearby, listened, he framed a desire and a 
resolve to learn the language which Minnie seemed to 
read and speak as easily as Auntie. The lesson over, 
Minnie came to Louis, took a place beside him and 
as one wooing, said, “Dear protégé: the hour is at 
hand. I have much to say. The woods are calling, 
the birds are waiting. Let us now repair to the pulpit 
and be two sensible humans.” To the pulpit they 
repaired, that day and many a day. Once seated on 
the great stone, Minnie put Louis at his ease and be- 
gan rapid-fire questions, about Louis’s home and school 
life. She wished every detail; and Louis answered 
faithfully. He told her not only the story of his 
life, but the story of every one and everything there- 


[ 146 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


with connected: Minnie saying: ‘Fine, fine, how well 
you tell it,” in running comment. He even told Min- 
nie one of Julia’s fairy tales, the tale of the “Good 
People,” and Minnie cried: “Oh, what a lovely brogue, 
isn’t it sweet?’ and Louis said yes, it was, and added 
that Julia had taught him some real Gaelic words, 
but he had forgotten the meaning of most of them. 
‘That gives me a bright idea, Louis; you don’t know 
French, so I will give you a pass-word, in French, 
that is better than any Gaelic. Say to me, once every 
day, Je t'aime’; and Louis said to her once every day 
Je taime—deeming it a secret. And Minnie would 
gravely say each time, in approval, that he pronounced 
it beautifully. 

She told him conversationally about herself and her 
home. She described in detail her finishing school, and 
mimicked its follies. She raved over her adored brother 
Ed, fresh from Yale. Told of her coming out, of 
Utica society, and her set, and of the landed aristoc- 
racy, the old families, the exclusive, best people; said 
her father was a big grain forwarder, and had plenty 
of money, as far as her simple needs were concerned, 
and described minutely her trip to Europe. She trav- 
elled this ground to and fro with many a mimicry, 
flippancy, wise saw, and splendid enthusiasms. 

So Louis began to see that people were graded. He 
was pained at many things Minnie casually described. 
She was revealing too much. She was unconscious of 
lifting many veils, as Louis was unconscious of repeat- 
ing world-truth when he said, every day, Je raime. 
He was not lifting any veil for Minnie; this self- 
same Minnie having one small devil peeping through 


[147 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


each eye. Their talk, throughout that live-long day, 
was gossip. 

When Minnie came, through questioning, to a full 
sense of the depth of Louis’s ignorance of the world, 
of social organization both in its ephemeral and its 
momentous inert and stratified aspects, that he was 
provincial, that he was honest, frank, and unsuspecting, 
she became alarmed at the new danger, and determined 
to prepare him; and in so doing, she lifted at least 
a corner of a sinister and heavy veil that lay behind 
appearances. This she did with skill, and a little at 
a time, proving her case in each instance, by direct 
illustration and remarks none too complimentary. But 
Minnie could not be serious for long at a time; she 
preferred frivolity, nonsense and high spirits—never 
for a moment neglecting to keep Louis dazed in her 
land of enchantment. 

Minnie became Louis’s precious teacher. She made 
him feel he was not being taught, but entertained with 
gossip. She knew that what she said in persiflage, 
would later sink in deep, and she knew why it would 
do so. 

Minnie was both worldly and unworldly. With 
nature she was dreamy; but when it came to people, 
she became a living microscope, her sharp brain void 
of all illusion, for her true world was of the world 
of people—there she lived—as Louis’s world had been 
a world of the wide open—of romance. Hence, with 
Louis she was ever gentle, even though she dangled 
him as though he were a toy balloon. 

An aching in her guarded heart was soothed by 
him; and he became for her a luxury—a something to 
remain awhile a precious memory. Thus Minnie filled 


[ 148 ] 


Peeper LOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


the air with laughter, and with debonnaire delight— 
meanwhile feeding honey drop by drop—yjust to see 
upon a human face the rare, the precious witching 
aspect of idolatry. 

ee ee 


So came a day when Minnie, on the pulpit, talked 
of things pertaining to herself. Among other words 
she said the young men of her set were grossly stupid; 
incapable of thought above the level of the sty. Their 
outlook upon life she said was vapid, coarse and vain. 
That they held women to be property, their appendage, 
their vehicle of display. ‘They were all rich, she said, 
and this made matters worse. To be anchored to such 
brutes, scarcely decent in their evening clothes, she said, 
was horror. She would be owned, she said, by no 
man rich or poor. She must be free, she said; free 
as air. Knowing all this now, she had marked her 
course in life, and she said that never would she marry 
—the risk of sorrow was too great. All this she said 
as lightly as a swallow on the wing. 

At these last words, something fell away in Louis’s 
solar plexus, sometimes known as the sensorium, and 
Minnie said: ‘‘Never mind, never mind, you’ll outgrow 
it, Louis, you are fourteen, I’m eighteen. While it 
lasts, let us be dear friends together; the dearest com- 
rades ever known. Your heart’s in mine and mine in 
yours, I know. Let these great oaks, as witnesses, be- 
trothe us in such way, and prophesy a lovely memory.” 

Louis with unheard-of stoicism held back his tears. 
And Minnie said: ‘Come now, let’s be going; don’t 
refer to this again. Let’s be as we've always been, 
together, carefree—and let laughter ring again.” 


[ 149 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


Such was Minnie’s way of doing and of saying. 
She was Louis’s loyal friend. She mothered him in 
sprightly malice and in tenderness alike. All her va- 
garies and sweetness came from one constant nature. 
She was ever thoughful of the needs of others. She 
was exquisitely human. To Louis, long adapted to 
the elderly, she was held by him as in a shrine, to 
be the only truly human he had ever known; and 
her kindness in adopting him, and making him her 
own, not for a day, but for all the glad summer long, 
made him feel as though his life, before her floating 
into it, had been but a blank. How could he ever 
repay! She had come, it seemed to him, out of the 
invisible that lies behind all things, all dreams, to be 
his faerie queen. 

And now it seems as though a half a century had 
stood still. 


[ 150 ] 


CHAPTER IX 


Boston—The English High School 


HILE at Lyons Falls, Louis made acquaint- 
ance of the sons of the tenant farmer; twins, 
two or three years older than he, and he ap- 
praised them accordingly. Broad shouldered, heavily 
built throughout, with large-featured homely faces 
evenly browned by the sun, they had big coarse hands 
which Louis envied. They swayed and lurched in talk- 
ing, shifting their feet; good natured, heavy-minded 
fellows, taller than Louis. One day they said they 
were bound for Brown’s Tract and would have as 
guide a trapper, a grown man; that they would head 
for a certain lake twenty miles away, where the trap- 
per had a shack and a canoe; that they were after 
game; they asked Louis if he would like to come along. 
Louis jumped at a chance he had been aching for. 
Many a day he had wondered what a forest could be, 
within its depths, as he gazed at the mass of sombre 
and silentious green rising from the dark waters of 
the river and had seen no hope to solve the mystery. 
The boys warned him that it would be rough, heavy 
work, with some danger; but he said the rougher the 
better, and that as to the dangers he was curious. 
Now, afoot, heavy laden, they have passed the 
fringe of the forest, and begun the ascent of a rough 
stony trail, climbing and descending the hills in a 
winding obscure way. Five miles in, they cross a “bark 
road,” so called, a ragged gash through the woods 
with stumps of trees, loose boulders and corduroy for 
roadbed. Strewn along the way of the road lie huge 


ote] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN 2DEa 


naked hemlocks stripped of bark for the tanneries to 
southward. No trail beyond this road; the real hard 
work, the stern hardship begins in the utter wildness 
of ancient fallen trees, tangled wildwood, precipitous 
ravines, the crossing of raging torrents—feeders of the 
Moose River—roaring under masses of forest wreck- 
age, involving high danger in the crossing, their wa- 
ters dark brown, forbidding, foaming brown-white; 
detours to be made around impassable rock out-crop- 
pings; wadings through cedar swamps; a bit of smooth 
needle-carpeted floor, for relief at times; many pant- 
ing rests, many restarts, grimly wending their way be- 
tween close-set uprearing shafts of mighty hemlocks, 
and tamaracks, with recurring narrow vistas quickly 
closing as the trampers cross a plateau, and then again 
descent and climb and hardship, hidden danger of fall- 
ing aged trees, no warning but the groan, then a crash 
and trembling earth; so pass four weary ones through 
a long August day, amid cathedral gloom, the roaring 
and the stillness of primeval forest. 

By sundown they have made ten miles. A _ hasty 
camp—no tent, a quick fire—coffee, bacon, hardtack, 
water from canteens; a small tamarack felled, its deli- 
cate fragrant boughs laid thick for a bed, a circle 
of smudge-fires, and shortly, four humans, in soaking 
boots, and clothing soaked with sweat and spray, sleep 
the instant sleep of exhaustion, in the dark of the 
moon, in the pitch black forest, as the circle of smudge 
fires faintly smoulders. 

At early dawn the trapper blows no horn, he rings 
no bell, but in bright good humor emits the awful 
siren of the screech-owl; the dead turn in their slum- 
ber-graves. Once more—the dead jump up. Camp- 


[ 2520) 


fer 2 TOBTOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


fire lighted, hurry-up, fires trod out, packs again on 
sore backs, stiff legs start and shortly limber. That 
day six miles of going,®and again death-asleep. Next 
day four miles of easy going as they reach the margin 
of a wide basin or valley, with level floor and stop 
at one end of a sumptuous lake, resting placid and 
serene as a fathomless mirror upheld by forest walls. 
At this point is a limited natural clearing; nearby is 
the shack, a large rough-hewn affair of unbarked sap- 
ling logs; and, bottom up, in the deep shade are found 
canoe and paddles. It is early afternoon. ‘They take 
their ease, lying awhile on the green sward, then spread 
boots and clothing in the sun to dry, bathe in the 
cool shallows safe from the icy spring-fed deep of the 
lake, resume half-dried boots and clothes and leisurely 
arrange the camp. Meanwhile the trapper, tall and 
lank, brings in a brace of partridge. Now all is joy, 
the pains forgot, the prize attained—they burst into 
raucous song to the effect that they are ‘dreaming 
now of Hallie.” 

Louis, musket in hand, walked to the edge of the 
shore, stopping not far from the timber wall. The 
lake, to his eye, appeared three miles long and three- 
quarters wide. He raised his gun and fired straight 
ahead. Instantly set in an astounding roar. It 
smashed, dashed and rolled sonorously along the mighty 
wall, suddenly fainting into an unseen bay, then rolling 
forth again into the open, passing on like subdued 
thunder; from the beginning scattering wild echoes, 
which in turn re-echoed criss-wise and cross-wise, an 
immense maze of vibrations, now passing slowly in 
decrescendo into a far away rumble and nearby trem- 
bling, fainting, dying, as the forest sternly regained its 


[Pr53;) 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


own, and primal stillness came. This display was too 
dramatic, even for Louis. Once was enough. It 
seemed too much like an eerie protest, the wildly pas- 
sionate rejoinder of a living forest disturbed in its 
primal solitudes of contemplation. Yet the stupen- 
dous rhythm, the orchestral beauty of it all, sank deep 
in Louis’s soul, now become as one with nature’s mood. 
He wandered from the camp, wishing to be alone, 
where he might be himself, solitary, in nature’s deep, 
and commune with venerable immensities that gave 
forth a voice of haunting stillness which seemed to 
murmur and at times to chant of an unseen, age-long, 
immanent, eternal power, which Louis coupled as one 
with a gentle, sensuous, alluring power to whose mov- 
ing song of enchantment he had trembled in response, 
within a bygone springtime in the open. 

The brief camp-life was much the usual thing. Game 
was scarce, but small speckled trout could be scooped 
up in quantity from a slow, deep rivulet in a nearby 
beaver meadow. 

Came time to return. ‘The trapper said he could 
lead them back by an easier way, but it meant a detour 
of thirty miles to Lyons Falls. They made the distance 
in three days. They had been away ten days all told; 
and Louis was exultant that he had made as good a 
showing as the farm-boy twins. 

All too soon came the hour to begin the journey 
homeward. Good-byes were said—some of them 
wistful. 

At Albany, Grandpa revealed a plan he had cher- 
ished in secret: ‘They were to take the day-boat down 
the Hudson to New York. Louis was profuse in grati- 
tude as he pre-figured coming wonders which he was 


[ 154 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


to see with his very own eyes, and appraise with his 
own sensibilities. And so it was, as Louis passed al- 
most directly from the sublimity of forest solitudes 
to the grandeur of the lower Hudson. As they passed 
West Point, Grandpa said that he had once taught 
French at the United States Military Academy, and 
that his pleasure there had been to swim the Hudson, 
across and back every morning before breakfast. 
Grandpa’s stock immediately jumped many points, for 
Louis held prowess in high honor. As they passed 
the Palisades Louis was astounded as Grandpa ex- 
plained their nature—huge basalt crystals standing on 
end. The life on the river all the way down had 
greatly entertained him; now he came in sight of 
greater shipping and entered an immense floating 
activity. | 

Of New York Louis saw but little; and when Grand- 
pa said it was here they landed when he with his family 
came from Geneva, Louis took the information deafly, 
not even inquiring when and why they had moved to 
Boston. Grandpa felt the hurt of this indifference. 
Here was this boy, his own cherished grandson, whose 
fourteen living years had been filled to overflow with 
vivid episodes, with active thoughts, with dreams, mys- 
teries, prophetic intuitions and rude industrious practi- 
calities, all commingled; here was this boy, ignorant, 
grossly innocent and careless of the vicissitudes and 
follies of a seething human world. He shuddered mo- 
mentarily at the chasm that lay between them. For 
Grandpa all too well knew the profound significance of 
a wholly truthful story of any human life, told continu- 
usely, without a break, from cradle to old age, could it 
be known and recorded of any other than one’s self. He 


Eiss.4 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ANWDea 


knew that the key to the mystery of human destiny 
and fate lay wrapped and lost within these lived but 
unrecorded stories. He knew also that Louis was now 
paying in ignorance the penalty of a sheltered life. 
Then he told Louis another secret: They were to 
leave on a Fall River boat and traverse the length of 
Long Island Sound. Thus, Louis, in renewed joy 
and ecstasy made his first long trip on the salted sea. 
Then duly came Boston, Wakefield and the romantic 


journey’s end. 
* # x 


Louis still had time to brush up rapidly for the high 
school examinations. He had chosen the English High 
rather than the Latin High. He was accustomed to 
thinking and acting for himself, seldom asking advice. 
His thoughts in mass were directed ever toward his 
chosen career; and he believed that the study of Latin 
would be a waste of time for him; the time element 
was present always as a concomitant of his ambitions. 
He wished always to advance in the shortest time com- 
patible with sure results. He had no objection to 
Latin as such, but believed its study suitable only to 
those who might have use for it in after-life. He had 
a keen gift for separating out what he deemed essential 
for himself. 

On September third, his birthday, he received a let- 
ter from Utica, filled with delicate sentiments, encourag- 
ing phrases, and concluding with an assurance that the 
writer would be with him in spirit through his high 
school days. 

The English and Latin High Schools, in those days, 
were housed in a single building, rather old and dingy, 
on the south side of Bedford Street; a partition wall 


[ 156 ] 


Pee ORIOGGRKRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


separating them, a single roof covering them. The 
street front was of granite, the side walls of brick. 
There were brick-paved yards for the recess half-hour 
with overflow to the street and a nearby bakery. It 
was a barn-like, repellant structure fronting on a lane 
as narrow as the prevailing New England mind of 
its day. 

Louis passed the examinations and his name was en- 
tered in the year book 1870-71. 

He was among those—about forty in all—assigned 
to a room on the second floor, presided over by a 
‘master’ named Moses Woolson. ‘This room was 
dingy rather than gloomy. The individual desks were 
in rows facing north, the light came from windows 
in the west and south walls. The master’s platform 
and desk were at the west wall; on the opposite wall 
was a long blackboard. The entrance door was at the 
north, and in the southwest corner were two large 
-glass-paneled cabinets, one containing a collection of 
minerals, the other carefully prepared specimens of 
wood from all parts of the world. 

The new class was assembled and seated by a moni- 
tor, while the master sat at his desk picking his right 
ear. Louis felt as one entering upon a new adventure, 
the outcome of which he could not forecast, but sur- 
mised would be momentous. 

Seated at last, Louis glanced at the master, whose 
appearance and make-up suggested, in a measure, a 
farmer of the hardy, spare, weather-beaten, penurious, 
successful type—apparently a man of forty or under. 
When silence had settled over the mob, the master 
rose and began an harangue to his raw recruits; indeed 
he plunged into it without a word of welcome. He 


[157 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


was a man above medium height, very scant beard, 
shocky hair, his movements were panther-like, his fea- 
tures, in action, were set as with authority and pugna- 
city, like those of a first mate taking on a fresh crew. 

He was tense, and did not swagger—a man of pas- 
sion. He said, in substance: “Boys, you don’t know 
me, but you soon will. The discipline here will be 
rigid. You have come here to learn and I'll see that 
you do. I will not only do my share but I will make 
you do yours. You are here under my care; no other 
man shall interfere with you. I rule here—I am mas- 
ter here—as you will soon discover. You are here as 
wards in my charge; I accept that charge as sacred;. 
I accept the responsibility involved as a high, exacting 
duty I owe to myself and equally to you. I will give 
to you all that I have; you shall give to me all that 
you have. But mark you: The first rule of discipline 
shall be SILENCE. Not a desk-top shall be raised, not 
a book touched, no shuffling of feet, no whispering, no 
sloppy movements, no rustling. I do not use the rod, 
I believe it the instrument of barbarous minds and 
weak wills, but I will shake the daylight out of any 
boy who transgresses, after one warning. The second 
rule shall be Strict ATTENTION: You are here to 
learn, to think, to concentrate on the matter in hand, 
to hold your minds steady. The third rule shall cover 
ALERTNESS. You shall be awake all the time—body 
and brain; you shall cultivate promptness, speed, nim- 
bleness, dexterity of mind. The fourth rule: You 
shall learn to LIsTEN; to listen in silence with the whole 
mind, not part of it; to listen with your whole heart, 
not part of it, for sound listening is a basis for sound 
thinking; sympathetic listening is a basis for sympa- 
[ 158 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


thetic, worth-while thinking; accurate listening is a 
basis of accurate thinking. Finally you are to learn 
to OBSERVE, to REFLECT, to DISCRIMINATE. But this 
subject is of such high importance, so much above your 
present understanding, that I will not comment upon 
it now; it is not to be approached without due prepara- 
tion. I shall not start you with a jerk, but tighten the 
lines bit by bit until I have you firmly in hand at the 
most spirited pace you can go.’’ As he said this last 
saying, a dangerous smile went back and forth over 
his grim set face. As to the rest, he outlined the curric- 
ulum and his plan of procedure for the coming school 
year. He stressed matters of hygiene; and stated that 
a raised hand would always have attention. Lessons 
were then marked off in the various books—all were 
to be “home lessons’’—and the class was dismissed for 
the day. 

Louis was amazed, thunder-struck, dumb-founded, 
over-joyed! He had caught and weighed every word 
as it fell from the lips of the master; to each thrilling 
word he had vibrated in open-eyed, amazed response. 
He knew now that through the years his thoughts, his 
emotions, his dreams, his feelings, his romances, his 
visions, had been formless and chaotic; now in this 
man’s utterances, they were voiced in explosive con- 
densation, in a flash they became defined, living, real. 
A pathway had been shown him, a wholly novel plan 
revealed that he grasped as a banner in his hand, as 
homeward bound he cried within: At last a Man! 

Louis felt the hour of freedom was at hand. He 
saw, with inward glowing, that true freedom could 
come only through discipline of power, and he trans- 
lated the master’s word of discipline into its true in- 


[ 159 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ANG 


tent: Self Discipline of self power. His eager life 
was to condense now in a focusing of powers: What 
had the words meant ;—‘‘silence,”’ ‘‘attention,”’ ““prompt- 
ness,” ‘‘speed,” ‘“‘accurate,” “observe,” “reflect,” “dis- 
criminate,” but powers of his own, obscurely mingled, 
unco-ordinated, and, thus far, vain to create? Now, 
in the master’s plan, which he saw as a ground plan, 
he beheld that for which, in the darkness of broad 
daylight, he had yearned so desperately in vain; that 
for which, as it were with empty, outstretched hands, 
he had grasped, vaguely groping; as one seeing 
through a film, that for which he had hungered with 
an aching heart as empty as his hands. He had not 
known, surely, what it was he wished to find, but 
when the master breathed the words that Louis felt 
to be inspired: “You are here as wards in my charge; 
I accept that charge as sacred; I accept the respon- 
sibility involved as a high exacting duty I owe to myself 
and equally to you. I will give to you all that I 
have, you shall give me all that you have,’’—a veil 
was parted, as it were by magic, and behold! there 
stood forth not alone a man but a TEACHER of the 
young. 

On board the train for Wakefield, Louis took ac- 
count of himself; he viewed the long, loop-like journey 
he had but recently completed, still fresh and free in 
memory’s hold. He had gathered in, as though he 
had flung and drawn a huge lassoo, the Berkshires, 
the Mohawk and its valley, Little Falls, the Black 
River, the Moose River, the primeval forest, and the 
Falls, the Hudson, the Catskills, the Palisades, New 
York Harbor, Long Island Sound; he had voyaged 
by rail, by river, and by sea. All these things, these 


[ 160 | 


Pree aUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


acts, with their inspiring thoughts and emotions and 
reveries he had drawn into himself and shaped as one 
single imposing drama, ushering in a new and greater 
life. Or, in a sense reversed, his ‘‘child-domain,”’ 
holding, within the encircling woods, his ravine, his 
rivulet, his dam, his lovely marsh, his great green 
field, his tall, beauteous, slender elm; land of his de- 
light, paradise of his earth-love, sequestered temple of 
his nature-worship, sanctuary of his visions and his 
dreams, had seemed at first, and hopefully, to extend 
itself progressively into a larger world as far as New- 
buryport and Boston, there, however, to stop, to re- 
main fixed and bound up for seven long years, held 
as by a sinister unseen dam, the larger, urgently grow- 
ing Louis, held also back within it, impatient, repressed, 
confined, dreaming of power, storing up ambition, 
searching for what lies behind the face of things, agi- 
tated and at times morose, malignant. When, of a 
sudden, the dam gives way, the child-domain so far 
enlarged, rushes forth, spreading over the earth, carry- 
ing with it the invisible living presence of Louis’s ar- 
dent soul, pouring its power of giving and receiving 
far and wide over land and sea, encompassing moun- 
tains and broad valleys, great rivers, turbulent water- 
falls, a solemn boundless forest enfolding a lustrous 
lake, and again a noble river mountain-banked, an 
amazing harbor, and the great salt waves of the sea 

itself. | 
Thus were the boundaries extended; thus were the 
power and splendor of Mother Earth revealed in part; 
thus was provided deep and sound foundation for the 
masterful free spirit, striding in power, in the open, 
[ 161 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


as the genius of the race of purblind, groping, striving, 
ever hoping, ever dreaming, illusioned mankind. 

And thus it seemed to Louis that he was becoming 
stronger and surer of himself. Reverting to the words 
of the master, he dared affirm that this very power 
was within him, as a ward in his charge; that he 
must accept that charge as sacred; that he must accept 
the responsibility involved as a high exacting duty he 
owed to himself and equally to it; that he must give 
to it his all, to insure that it might give to him its all. 

And Louis now saw clearly and in wonder, that a 
whim of his Grandpa, not the Rice Grammar School, 
had prepared him to meet Moses Woolson on fair 
terms. With confident assurance he awaited the begin- 
ning of what he foresaw was to be a long and arduous 
disciplinary training, which he knew he needed, and 
now welcomed. 

That evening he told Grandpa what he thought of 
Moses Woolson and his plan; and Grandpa, with 
inward seeing eyes, smiled indulgence at his grandson 
seated on his knee, one hand about his neck, as he 
mused aloud: “My dear child, allowing for the rosy 
mist of romance through which an adolescent like your- 
self sees all things glorified, I will say that in the 
whole wide world it is true there may be found a few 
such men as you portray; but as a venerable and pru- 
dent Grandpa I shall reserve the right to wait awhile 
that we may see how the ideal and the real agree. 
But you go at it just the same, regardless of what 
may be passing in the back of my bald head.’ And 
Louis laughed, and kissed and hugged his Grandpa, 
and settled to his lessons, as grandma knitted by the 
student lamp, as uncle Julius thrummed away on a 


[ 162 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


helpless guitar and sang the melancholy sentimental 
ditties of the day, and as Grandpa, in slippers, gazed 
with incredulity at a boy on the floor oblivious of 
them all. 

As it has but little import in this story, we shall 
pass over the breaking-in period of Moses Woolson’s 
class, and begin an exposition of Moses Woolson’s plan 
and method, and Louis’s responses thereto at that pe- 
riod the master himself had forecast as “when I have 
you firmly in hand at the most spirited pace you can 
go.” Suffice it to say that with great skill in intensive 
training he had brought them to this point within three 
months. 

The ground work of his plan was set forth in his 
opening address, and is now to be revealed in its 
workings in detail. | 

The studies on which Louis set the highest value 
were Algebra, Geometry, English Literature, Botany, 
Mineralogy and French language. All these subjects 
were to him revelations. Algebra had startled him; 
for, through its portal he entered an unsuspected world 
of symbols. ‘To him the symbol x flashed at once as 
a key to the unknown but ascertainable. Standing 
alone, he viewed this x in surprise as a mystic spirit 
in a land of enchantment, opening vistas so deep he 
could not see the end, and his vivid imagination saw 
at once that this x, expanded in its latent power, might 
prove the key to turn a lock in a door within a wall 
which shut out the truth he was seeking—the truth 
which might dissolve for him the mystery that lay be- 
hind appearances. For this x, he saw, was manipu- 
lated by means of things unknown. 

Thus he saw far ahead; looking toward the time 


[ 163 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


when he would be mature. Geometry delighted him 
because of its nicety, its exactitude of relationships, its 
weird surprises—all like fairy tales, fairy tales which 
could be proved, and then you said: Q.E.D. He. 
began to see what was meant by a theorem, a postulate, 
a problem, and that proof was a reasoned process based 
on certain facts or assertions. It was well for him, 
at the time, that he did not perceive the Euclidian 
rigidity, in the sense that he had noted the fluency of 
Algebra. As to Botany, had he not always seen trees 
and shrubs and vines and flowers of the field, the 
orchard and the garden? 

Now he was learning their true story, their most 
secret intimacies, and the organization of their world. 
He loved them all the more for this. Mineralogy 
was new and revealing, the common stones had begun 
as it were, to talk to him in their own words. Con- 
cerning French he was ardent, for he had France in 
view. English literature opened to him the great 
world of words, of ordered speech, the marvelous 
vehicle whereby were conveyed every human thought 
and feeling from mind to mind, from heart to heart, 
from soul to soul, from imagination to imagination, 
from thought to thought; and to his ever widening 
view, it soon arose before him as a vast treasure house 
wherein was stored, in huge accumulation, a record 
of the thoughts, the deeds, the hopes, the joys, the 
sorrows, and the triumphs of mankind. 

Moses Woolson was not a deep thinker, nor was 
Moses Woolson erudite or scholarly, or polished in 
manners, or sedate. Rather was he a blend of wild 
man and of poet. But of a surety he had the art 
of teaching at his finger tips and his plan of procedure 


[ 164 ] 


Teemu LOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


was scientific to a degree, so far beyond the pedagogic 
attainments of his day that he stood unique, and was 
cordially hated by his craft as lambs might fear and 
hate a wolf. “Today men would speak of such a man 
as a ‘human dynamo,” a man ninety-nine per cent “‘effi- 
cient.” lis one weakness was a temper he all too 
often let escape him, but his high strung, nervous make- 
up may be averred in part extenuation, for this very 
make-up was the source of his accomplishment and 
power: He surely gave in abundance, with overflow: 
ing hands, all that he had of the best to give. 

His plan of procedure was simple in idea, and there- 
fore possible of high elaboration in the steady course 
of its unfolding into action and results. For conveni- 
ence it may be divided into three daily phases seemingly 
consecutive, but really interblended; first came severe 
memory drill, particularly in geometry, algebra, French 
grammar and in exact English; this work first done 
at home, and tested out next day in the school room. 
Second, (first, next day) a period of recitation in which 
memory discipline and every aspect of alertness were 
carried at high tension. At the end of this period 
came the customary half-hour recess for fresh air and 
easing up. After recess came nature study with open 
book. Chief among them Gray’s “School and Field 
Book of Botany’—Louis’s playground; then came a 
closing lecture by the Master. 

Thus it may be said, there was a period of high 
tension, followed by a period of reduced tension, and 
this in turn by a closing period of semi or complete 
relaxation, as the master reeled off in easy, entertain- 
ing talk, one of his delightful lectures. It was in 
the nature studies, and in these closing lectures, par- 


[ 165 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


ticularly those in which he dwelt upon the great out- 
of-doors, and upon the glories of English literature, 
that the deep enthusiasms of the man’s nature came 
forth undisguised and unrestrained, rising often to the 
heights of impassioned eloquence, and _ beauteous 
awakening imagery. These lectures, or rather, in- 
formal talks covered a wide range of subjects, most 
of them lying beyond the boundaries of the school 
curriculum. 

Thus, in a sense, Moses Woolson’s school room par- 
took of the nature of a university—quite impressively 
so when Professor Asa Gray of Harvard came occa- 
sionally to talk botany to the boys. He did this out 
of regard for Moses Woolson’s love of the science. 
The unfailing peroration of these lectures—every one 
of them, was an exhortation in favor of ‘‘Women’s 
Rights,” as the movement was called at the time; for 
Moses Woolson was a sincere and ardent champion 
of womankind. On this topic he spoke in true nobility 
of spirit. 

But the talks that gripped Louis the hardest were 
those on English literature. Here the master was 
completely at his ease. Here, indeed, he revelled, as 
it were, in the careful analysis and lucid exposition of 
every phase of his subject, copious in quotatoin, de- 
lightfully critical in taking apart a passage, a single 
line, explaining the value of each word in respect of 
action, rhythm, color, quality, texture, fitness, then put- 
ting these elements together in a renewed recital of 
the passage which now became a living moving utter- 
ance. Impartial in judgment, fertile in illustration and 
expedient, clear in statement, he opened to view a 
new world, a new land of enchantment. 


[ 166 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


One day, to Louis’s amazement, he announced that 
the best existing history of English literature was writ- 
ten by a Frenchman, one Hyppolite Taine by name. 
This phenomenon he explained by stating that the fine 
French mind possessed a quality and power of detach- 
ment unknown to the English; that Monsieur Taine 
further possessed that spiritual aspect of sympathy, that 
vision, which enabled him to view, to enter freely and 
to comprehend a work of art regardless yet regardful 
of its origin in time or place; and he rounded an anti- 
thesis of French and English culture in such wise as 
to arouse Louis’s keenest attention, for the word cul- 
ture, had hitherto possessed no significance for him; 
it was merely a word! Now his thoughts, his whole 
being floated o’er the sea to distant France, whereupon 
he arose from his seat and asked Moses Woolson what 
culture really meant, and was told it signified the genius 
of a people, of a race. And what was meant by the 
genius of a people? It signified their innate qualities 
and powers of heart and mind; that therefore their 
culture was their own expression of their inmost selves, 
as individuals, as a people, as a race. Louis was mag- 
nificently bewildered by this high concentration. He 
seemed to be in a flood of light which hid everything 
from view; he made some sheepish rejoinder, where- 
upon Moses Woolson saw his own mistake. 

He came down from his high perch to which he 
had climbed unwittingly, for it was dead against his 
theory and practice to talk above the heads of his boys. 
He thereupon diluted the prior statement with a sim- 
ply worded illustration, and Louis was glad to find his 
own feet still on the ground. Then Louis put the 
two aspects of the statement side by side again, and 


[ 167 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ANWere 


‘culture’ became for him a living word—a sheer veil 
through which, at first, he could but dimly see; but 
living word and sheer living veil had come from with- 
out to abide with him. It seemed indeed as though 
Moses Woolson had passed on to him a wand of en- 
chantment which he must learn to use to unveil the 
face of things. Thus Louis dreamed. 

By the end of the school year Moses Woolson 
through genius as a teacher, had turned a crudely prom- 
ising boy into, so to speak, a mental athlete. He had 
brought order out of disorder, definition out of what 
was vague, superb alertness out of mere boyish ardor; 
had nurtured and concentrated all that was best in the 
boy; had made him consciously courageous and inde- 
pendent; had focussed his powers of thought, feeling 
and. action; had confirmed Louis’s love of the great 
out of doors, as a source of inspiration; and had cli- 
maxed all by parting a great veil which opened to the 
view of this same boy, the wonderland of Poetry. 

Thus with great skill he made of Louis a compacted 
personality, ready to act on his own initiative, in an 
intelligent purposeful way. Louis had the same capa- 
city to absorb, and to value discipline, that Moses 
Woolson had to impart it, and Louis was not a bril- 
liant or showy scholar. He stood well up in his class 
and that was enough. His purpose was not to give © 
out, but to receive, to acquire. He was adept in the 
art of listening and was therefore rather silent of 
mood. His object was to get every ounce of treasure 
out of Moses Woolson. And yet for Moses Woolson, 
the master and the man, he felt neither love nor af- 
fection, and it is quite likely that the master felt much 
the same toward him. What he felt toward the man 


[ 168 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


was a vast admiration, he felt the power and the vigor 
of his intense and prodigal personality. It is scarcely 
likely that the master really knew, to the full extent, 
what he was doing for this boy, but Louis knew it; 
and there came gradually over him a cumulative re- 
ciprocity which, at the end, when he had fully realized 
the nature of the gift, burst forth into a sense of obli- 
gation and of gratitude so heartfelt, so profound, that 
it has remained with him in constancy throughout the 
years. There may have been teachers and teachers, 
but for Louis Sullivan there was and could be only 
one. And now, in all too feeble utterance he pleads 
this token, remembrance, to the memory of that ONE 
long since passed on. 


> ** > 


Meanwhile a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand 
arose into the clear blue above the horizon of Henri 
List’s placid life. Early in 1871 Anna List, his wife, 
his prop, his anchor, his life’s mainstay, was taken with 
her first and last illness. Louis was forbidden her 
room. All was quiet; furtive comings and goings; 
whispered anxious words. ‘The cloud arose, darkened 
the world and passed on. One morning, it was told 
that he, Louis, might see her. He went directly to her 
room, opened the door, and entered. The white shades 
were down and all was light within. On the bed he 
saw extended an object fully covered by a sheet. He 
advanced, drew aside the sheet, rashly pressed his lips 
upon the cold forehead, drew back as though stung. 

Standing erect he gazed steadfastly down upon rigid 
features that seemed of unearthly ivory. 

Grandmamma had vanished! 


[ 169 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


What signified this cold menace he now scanned? 
This stranger in the house—whence Grandmamma had 
gone forever? 

What meant this effigy, this ivory simulacrum that 
had come here in her stead? 

It could not see, it could not hear, it could not fon 
it could not move, it could not speak, it could not love! 

Grandmamma had vanished! 

She had passed on with a great cloud that had cast 
its shadow. 

And here, now before him lay a counterfeit, where 
once she was. 

An object, a nothing, a something and a nothing, 
which Louis could not think or name; an ivory mask 
which repelled, which instantly he rejected, as a ghastly 
intrusion. 

And they had said that he would see his Grand- 
mamma ! 

Ah! then, was this petrified illusion his Grand- 
mamma? 

They lied! 

His true Grandmamma was in his heart and would 
remain there till his own end should come. Whatever 
this object before him might be, it was not Gran’ma! 

His Grandmamma had vanished! 

He replaced the shroud. Dry-eyed, and as one filled 
with a cold light, he left the room. 

Never before had Louis seen what Death, the cloud 
no bigger than a man’s hand, leaves behind it as it 
passes overhead and vanishes. 

x x x 


An upright white marble slab, in the cemetery, at 
the point of the promontory that juts into Lake Quan- 


[ 170 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


napowitt, says to the stranger wandering therein, that 
ANNA, wife of Henri List died 2 April, 1871, aged 
66 years. 

In this laconic statement the cynic hand of Henri 
List is clearly seen, even as at the funeral service in the 
‘spare room” he was prostrate in an overwhelming 
flood of hysteria and tears, even as Louis stood by, 
gazing at him in wonder that a strong man could be 
so weak; even as Louis, cold and harshly irritated by 
the Baptist minister, whose sensuous words in praise 
of human bloodshed, he cursed. Driven to despera- 
tion by the whining quartet, he rushed into the open, 
sat under a tree and damned them all to perdition. 
Why had he been dragged into this gross orgy of 
grief? Could he not be left alone and in peace, to 
revere in memory that grandmamma who still lived 
on within his heart? ‘The others with their noisy and 
their mercenary grief would soon forget. He, never. 
As thus he raged, a peach tree in full bloom in the 
garden caught his eye. He hastened to it as to a 
friend, in dire need. Its Joyous presence in the garden 
gave him courage, for spring again was singing her 
great song. ‘The air was vocal in a choir of resurrec- 
tion. Here indeed was resurrection and the life. It 
seemed to him not in the least incongruous that his 
beloved had vanished into that great life whence she 
came—whence he had come; and that as Life was 
within him, so was his beloved within him as life within 
a life to be treasured evermore. 

Thus near the peach tree in full bloom, Louis’s tor- 
tured mind was stilled. He accepted death as an 
evanishment, he accepted Life as the power of powers. 
It seemed, indeed, as standing near his friend, gazing 


hal 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


fondly round about and upward through the invisible 
firmament, that this great power, Life, in gesture and 
in utterance through the song of spring, had set its 
glowing rainbow in the passing cloud as a token of a 
covenant that the pure of eye might see. And indeed 
it seemed to him as quite lucid that the cloud with the 
glowing rainbow in its heart might well stand forever 
as a symbol of a token of a covenant between Life, 
and Man’s proud spirit, and the Earth. Thus Louis 
dreamed. And it seemed as though a small voice com- 
ing from afar, said: “If one must dream let the dream 
be one of happiness.”’ 


* * * 


For the second time the house of Henri List had 
collapsed and gone down. This time in fragments. 
Soon the farm was sold. Julia, she of flaming hair, 
bewitching fairy tales, and temper of Iseult, cook and 
companion for nine long years, vanished in turn; Julius, 
the son, now twenty-five, offered a place, ‘‘in Philadel- 
phia,” went there; his father followed. 

Louis found welcome and shelter with the next door 
neighbors, the John A. ‘Tompsons, whose son George 
for years had been his playmate. And the earth re- 
sumed its revolution about its own private axis as be- 
fore; day following night as usual. Daily, George 
Tompson went to “Tech” to pursue his studies in 
railway engineering. Daily, Louis paid his renewed 
respects to Moses Woolson. Daily, John A. Tompson 
returned from Boston at an exact hour, removed his 
hat, walked to a glass cabinet, took exactly one stiff 
swig of Bourbon straight, smacked his lips, twinkled 
his eyes, sank into an easy chair which had remained 


pwi2 | 


Pree OLLOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


in the same place for exactly how many years no one 
knows, dozed off for exactly ten minutes, arose, 
stretched his short muscular body, smiled widely, dis- 
playing false teeth, dyed-black side whiskers and mous- 
tache, a fine high forehead and dark fine eyes with as 
merry a twinkle as one could wish; then he went forth 
to see if each cultivated tree and shrub and bush and 
vine were exactly where they were in the morning. 
This man, gifted with extraordinary deftness of hand 
and a high-spirited intelligence, became a wonder and 
an inspiration to Louis, who spent the following two 
years in this charming household where epicureanism 
prevailed. 

That spring and summer, Louis botanized and 
mineralized with incessant ardor, and he saw what it 
signified that each thing should have a name, and what 
order and classification meant in the way of organized 
intelligence, and increased power of manipulation of 
things and thoughts. MHis insight into the relation- 
ship of function and structure deepened rapidly. A 
thousand things now began to cohere and arrange into 
groups which hitherto had seemed disparate and wide 
apart. To be sure, Moses Woolson was the impelling 
cause and it was up to Louis to do the work and to 
search and find and see these things objectively and 
clearly for himself. Thus logical connections began 
to form a plexus in his growing mind, beside which 
also upgrew a sense of equal logic and order in action. 
Now, John A. Tompson had this faculty of order and 
delicate precision. in so marked a degree that Louis 
kept a close eye on his doings. In the fall Louis re- 
turned to the English High School and entered the 
Second Class under a sub-master named Hale. Mr. 


Way 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


Hale was a scholar and a gentleman, a shining light 
of conscientious, conventional, virtuous routine. 

With that clear and ruthless faculty, which boys 
possess, of spotting the essentials of their elders, Louis 
at the first session so sized up Hale; and dismay and 
despair swept through him in an awful wave of de- 
pression; it seemed as though the light of life had gone 
out. What was this tallow dip to the hot sun of 
Woolson. What could this mannikin accomplish? 
What could this respectable and approved lay figure 
do for one who had been trained intensively for a 
year by Moses Woolson? Let us therefore quickly 
draw the veil; and forget. 

At the end of this school year, George Tompson 
asked Louis why he did not try for “Tech.” And 
Louis replied that he supposed that he must first finish 
“High.” ‘“‘Nonsense,’’ said George, “You can pass 
easily.” And thus encouraged, Louis passed easily. 

It should be mentioned that at the time of the great 
Chicago fire, Louis received prompt word that the 
family were safe and sound beyond the reach of its 
fearsome ravages. And also Louis’s faithful corre- 
spondence with those far away must not be overlooked. 
Thus he now felt safe and strong to face in ‘“Tech’’ 
his first adventure, as prelude to an architectural career. 


[ 174 ] 


CHAPTER X 


Farewell to Boston 


URING the two years Louis dwelt in the home 

D of the John A. Tompsons, in Wakefield, he 
was very busy in thought and deed. A certain 
materialistic clarification of intellect was proceeding 
within a new light which enabled him to see things 
superficially and to share in that state of illusion con- 
cerning realities which was the common property of 
the educated and refined. The dreams of childhood— 
that form of mystical illumination which enables the 
little one to see that upon which the eyes of its elders 
seldom focus—were thereby eclipsed; and, in one less 
romantic and willful by nature, would have vanished 
permanently from active consciousness in the usual and 
customary way. For this very period of imaginative 
childhood is by most adults relegated to obscurity; and 
if referred to at all, dismissed as inconsequential and 
“childish.” But childhood, thus banished, remains 
sequestered within us unchanged. It may be obscured 
by an overlay of our sophistication, our pride and our 
disdain; we, the while, unaware that to disdain our 
fertile childhood is precisely equivalent to disdain of 
our maturity. Hence the illusion that we are no longer 
the child; the delusion that we are any other than 
grown children. For where lives the man who does 
not firmly believe in magic and in fairy tales; who does 
not worship something with a child-like faith, who does 
not dream his dreams, however sordid or destructive, 
however high, however nobly altruistic? And Louis 
thus dared to disdain and eclipse his own childhood. 


(@h433] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


For was he not rising now like a toy balloon into the 
rarefied atmosphere of intellect? And what had in- 
tellect to do with childhood? Intellect, indeed, was 
the cachet of manhood, in whose borderland he was 
now wandering, making ready to cross the frontier, 
some day to enter what men called ‘‘real life.” This 
mood began when Louis was well settled in the Massa- 
chusetts Institute of Technology—familiarly known 
as ‘““Tech’’—pursuing his special course in Architecture. 

To John A. Tompson’s tutelage Louis owed many 
pirouettes, particularly some knowledge and some un- 
derstanding and misunderstanding of the great ora- 
torios. Under the sway of their beauty, the sensuous 
allure of the sacred music, Louis would return again 
and again to his childhood’s sensibilities and faith. But 
there came a telling change when he had acquired from 
John A. some knowledge of their structure, some defi- 
nition and labelling of the wondrous chords and modu- 
lations that had exalted him to an agony, and had 
borne him along in a great resplendent stream of song, 
which became a stream of wonder upon wonder, that 
men had made these things—had made them all out 
of their heads. And in this maze of hero-worship he 
had dreamed again and again his natal dream of power, 
of that power within man of which no one had told 
him; for he had heard only of the power of God. And 
in this special dream he had in truth and noble faith 
seen man as magician bringing forth from nothingness, 
from depths of silence of a huge world of sleep, as 
though, by waving of some unknown unseen wand, he 
had evoked this sublime, this amazing fabric; which 
equally would pass away and vanish with the sound of 


[ 176 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


the last note, even as the bare thought of such passing 
left a haunt within. 

It was then John A. Tompson, he of the precise, 
the articulate, the exact, the meticulous, the hard in: 
telligence—who bit by bit led Louis on. He dispelled 
for him the music-world of enchantment wherein simple 
faith had seen the true substance and value of results; 
he substituting therefor a world of fact and technique. 
It was all subtly done, bit by bit. The first effect of 
this was to arouse in Louis a new interest—an interest 
in technique—in the how. John A. Tompson, himself, 
indeed loved these oratorios, with a fanaticism pecu- 
liarly his own, somewhat as though he were impersonat- 
ing a machinist’s vise. He clung to them indeed as 
though imagining he was a shipwrecked mariner and 
they a saving raft; yet he was quiet and gleeful amid 
the dangers of the open sea of sound. 

He used to grit his teeth when he was pleased and 
he frequently was pleased when on shore he was giving 
Louis a hypodermic of technique. Louis’s utter inno- 
cence of music’s artful structure, form and content was 
John A.’s joy, his secret delight. Thus Louis learned, 
concerning chords, that the one in particular that had 
overwhelmed him with a sort of gorgeous sorrow was 
called the dominant seventh, and another that seemed 
eerie and that gave him a peculiar nervous thrill and 
chill was named the augmented fifth. Louis had been 
very curious concerning these two chords; and further- 
more he was insistent to know why certain parts of the 
music filled him with joyful, inspiriting and triumphant 
pleasure, while other parts made him sad even to mel- 
ancholy and despair. He was told that these opposites 
were known as the major and the minor modes and 


gle veal 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


he was much concerned too, regarding what he later 
learned were the diatonic and the chromatic scales— 
and further concerning that strange swaying and turn- 
ing of surging harmonies—that it was a movement 
technically known as a modulation from one key into 
another. Now Louis became avariciously curious con- 
cerning all the remaining technicalities and names, and 
amassed them as one might collect precious curios. It 
seemed to him that in giving names to all these sounds 
and movements he had heard and felt; it was much like 
giving names to the flowers and shrubs and trees he 
had loved so well. But this difference he marked: 
That while his plants and trees in spite of names lived 
on in mystery, and slept their winter sleep, to be again 
awakened by the call of Spring, giving names to music 
had dispelled the mystery, and had caused its sweet 
enchantments one by one to pass in defile into a group 
of words, which might mean much or nothing accord- 
ing as one first had felt the living power without their 
aid. ‘That the danger was that music might become 
enslaved to the intellect and might nevermore be free. 
For as he began to see the full bulk of the mechanics, 
the mechanisms, and the tyranny of rules he became 
alarmed that music might die. For he could not yet 
see that here also, spite of names, the mystery, the 
enchantment would live on even though it be in winter 
sleep, and, at imagination’s rousing call, again and 
again would renew its onward flow of rejuvenescence, 
and thus retain its magic power to stir the heart. 

Thus Louis learned a modicum concerning music. A 
very trifle, to be sure. For he lived in Puritan New 
England where large utterances of joy and faith in the 


[ 178 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


Earth, of faith in Life, of faith in Man, were few and 
far between. 

Nevertheless he had now definitely entered the cul- 
tural world, within which were the blest, without which 
were the damned. ‘The world of intellectual dissec- 
tion, surgery and therapeutics; the world of theory, of 
conjecture, of analysis and synthesis; the world of Idea, 
of Abstraction, of tenuity, of minute distinctions and 
nuances, filled with its specific belief in magic, its own 
superstitions, its aberrations, its taboos, denials and 
negations, and yet equally a world of vast horizons, 
of eagle-eyed range, of immense powers of ethereal 
flight to the far and the near, seeking the stars to 
know them, seeking the most minute to know it, search- 
ing the invisible to inquire what may be there, ever 
roaming, ever inquiring, inquisitive, acquisitive, accu- 
mulating a vast fund of the how and why, wherewith 
to record, to construct, to upbuild; and yet, withal, in 
giant service to the willful power of Imagination with- 
out whose vitalizing spark it could not stir; while in 
the fullness of its strength it can no more than carry 
on the heart’s desire. 

The living relationship of Intellect and Instinct has 
far too long been overlooked. For Intellect is recent, 
and neuter, and unstable in itself, while Instinct is 
primordial and procreant: It is a power so vast, so 
fathomless, so omnipresent, that we ignore it; for it is 
the vast power of all time that sleeps and dreams; it is 
that power within whose dream we dream,—even as 
in our practical aspect, our hard headed, cold-blooded, 
shrewd, calculating suspicious caution we are most ob- 
viously dreamers of turbid dreams, for we have pinned 


[ 179 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


our faith to Intellect; we gaze in lethal adoration upon 
a reed shaken by the wind. 

About this time flamboyantly arose Patrick Gilmore 
with his band and his World Jubilee. Then Louis 
discovered there had been in existence music quite other 
than oratorio, hymn, sentimental songs of the hoi pol- 
loi and burnt-cork minstrels, or the classic grindings 
of the hurdy-gurdy. 

He found it refreshing and gay, melodious above all. 
When he heard full bosomed Parepa sing in colora- 
tura, he could scarcely keep his seat; never was such 
soprano heard in oratorio, and when the elder Strauss 
like a little he-wren mounted the conductor’s stand, 
violin in hand, and dancing, led the orchestra through 
the lively cadence of the Blue Danube, Louis thought 
him the biggest little man on earth; and when it came 
to the ‘‘sextette’’ from Lucia, Louis roared his ap- 
proval and listened just as eagerly to the inevitable en- 
core. And the “Anvil Chorus’’—oh, the Anvil Chorus! 
And so on, day by day, night by night from glorious 
beginning to glorious end. He had heard the finest 
voices in the world, great orchestral out-pourings, im- 
mense choruses. But he was, above all, amazed at the 
power of the single voice, when trained to perfection 
of control. He felt again with delight its unique qual- 
ity, its range, its fluency, its flexibility, its emotional 
gamut, its direct personal intimate appeal; he felt a 
soul, a being, in the single voice, the heartful, the 
perfect instrument whereby to interpret and convey 
every state of feeling and of thought; and he was glad 
indeed. 

This blossoming of music exotic to all he had known 
hitherto, made him glad, made him gay, relaxed his 


[ 180 ] 


Poet POBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


sobriety, refreshed his outlook on life. It filled him 
with a new consciousness of beauty; of a beauty that 
seemed free and debonair, like a swan in the pool, like 
rain on the roof, like roses on a garden wall, with 
groves, and a turquoise sky; like bold and joyous 
horses, saying ha! ha!—and like unto furtive gentle 
creatures of wood and stream, and like curling breakers 
when close by, or the tossing of trees in a hearty gale. 


* * * 


More excitement: Came the great conflagration of 
9 and 10 November, 1872. Louis saw this terror 
from its trifling beginning—a small flame curling from 
the wooden cornice of a building on the north side of 
Summer street. “There were perhaps a half dozen per- 
sons present at the time. ‘The street was night-still. 
It was early. No fire engine came. Horses were sick, 
‘epizootic’ was raging. Engines must be drawn by 
hand. All was quiet as the small flame grew into a 
whorl and sparks shot upward from a glow behind; 
the windows became lighted from within. A few more 
people gathered, but no engine came. Then began a 
gentle purring roar. ‘The few became a crowd but no 
engine came. Glass crackled and crashed, flames burst 
forth madly from all windows, and the lambent dark 
flames behind them soared high, casting multitudes of 
sparks and embers abroad, as they cracked and 
wheezed. ‘The roof fell, the floors collapsed.. A hand- 
drawn engine came, but too late. The front wall tot- 
tered, swayed and crumbled to the pavement, exposing 
to view a roaring furnace. It was too late. The city 
seemed doomed. With this prelude began the great 
historic fire. Louis followed its ravages all night long. 


[ 181 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


It was a magnificent but terrible pageant of wrathful 
fire before whose onslaught row after row of regi- 
mented buildings melted away. As far as the eye could 
reach all was consuming fire, and dire devastation; an 
inferno, terrible and wonderful to look upon. Louis 
went here and there, retreating as the holocaust ad- 
vanced ever northward. All the city seemed doomed, 
but it was not. All hope seemed lost, but it was not. 
The end came at last; courageous, weary and worn 
men triumphed, after agontes of hope and despair. 
What a terror, what a holocaust, what ruin of men, 
what downfall, what instant collapses of fortune, what 
a heavy load to meet and bear, what a trial and a test. 
Yet a proud spirit, the eternal spirit of man rose to 
the height of the call of calamity. ‘The city was re- 
built. For Louis it was a terrifying experience; so 
sudden, so overwhelming, so fatalistic, so cruel. 

When the ruins cooled Louis found it difficult to 
locate the streets. “hey seemed labyrinthine, lost in 
a maze of wreckage and debris; bit by bit he found 
his strange way about. At night he was put on guard 
duty as a member of the M. I. T. battalion. Clad in 
full uniform with Springfield rifle and fixed bayonet 
at right shoulder, he walked his beat from Tremont 
street to Pleasant street as far as opposite the tower of 
the Providence Depot, and return. For hours in the 
night, all alone, he walked his beat and saw not a soul. 
At first it was novel and exciting, but as nothing hap- 
pened, he became weary from loss of sleep, bored by 
the monotonous to and fro, and glad to be relieved. 
He had two nights of this. Then came a show of 
order throughout the city and the great work of clear- 
[ 182 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


ing and upbuilding, in due time began. He returned 
to his studies in Tech. 

He had liked military drill; he had had two years 
of it at “High.” He liked the exercise, the sense of 
order and precision, the neat evolutions and the com- 
pact team work of the many cadets. But he considered 
it as discipline in play. He had no thought of war 
other than to loathe it, as the wild dream of madmen 
who stood safely behind the evil. For Louis, long since 
had begun to sense and to discern what lay behind 
the veil of appearances. Social strata had become 
visible and clear, as also that hypocrisy of caste and 
cant and “eminence’’ against which his mother, time 
and time again, had spoken so clearly, so vehemently 
in anger and contempt. Her ideal she averred was a 
righteous man, sound of head, clean of heart, a truth- 
ful man too natural to lie or to evade. These outbursts 
of his mother sank deep into the being of her son; and 
in looking back adown the years, he has reason justly 
to appraise in reverence and love a nature so transpar- 
ent, so pure, so vehement, so sound, so filled with a 
yearning for the joy of life, so innocent-ecstatic in 
contemplation of beauty anywhere, as was that of the 
one who bore him forth, truly in fidelity, to be and to 
remain life of her life. Thus the curtain of memory 
ever lifts and falls and lifts again, on one to whom 
this prayer is addressed. If Louis is not his mother’s 
spirit in the flesh, then words fail, and memory is vain. 


* ok Ox 
Upon his entry into ‘Tech’ Louis felt a marked 


change in atmosphere from that of “High.” It was 
now an atmosphere of laissez faire, of a new sort of 


[ 183 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPAY OF AN Tpra 


freedom. ‘Tuition paid, the rest he found was up to 
him. There was no special regularity of hours or of 
attendance. He might exert himself or not as he saw 
fit. He might learn as much or little as he chose. 
There was no discipline further than this: That one 
was expected to conduct himself with decorum and 
with a reasonable degree of application. It was broadly 
assumed that the student was there in his own interest 
and would apply himself accordingly. 

The school was housed in Rogers Hall, adjoining, 
on the south, the Museum of Natural History, at 
Boylston and Berkeley streets. “The quarters were 
pleasant and airy, the long drafting-room or atelier 
facing broadside to the south. There was also a Li- 
brary and a Lecture Room. At this date the school 
was comparatively new, having been opened in 1865. 
Louis therefore was among its early students. This 
one building housed the Institute entire. 

The School of Architecture was presided over by 
Professor William R. Ware, of the Boston architec- 
tural firm of Ware & Van Brunt. Among the im- 
portant works of this firm were the Memorial Build- 
ing at Harvard, and the large Railway Station at Wor- 
cester. Professor Ware was a gentleman of the old 
school; a bachelor, of good height, slender, bearded in 
the English fashion, and turning gray. He had his 
small affectations, harmless enough. His voice was 
somewhat husky, his polite bearing impeccable and 
kind. He had a precious sense of quiet humor, and 
common sense seemed to have a strong hold on him. 
Withal he was worthy of personal respect and affec- 
tion. His attainments were moderate in scope and 
soundly cultural as of the day; his judgments were clear 


[ 184 ] 


ZFHE AUTOBIOGRAPAY OF AN IDEA 


and just. The words amiability and quiet common 
sense sum up his personality; he was not imaginative 
enough to be ardent. 

His assistant, Eugene Letang, was a diplomeé of the 
Ecole National des Beaux Arts, Paris, and specifically 
an ancien of the atelier libre of Emil Vaudremer, ar- 
chitect, a winner of the Grand Prix de Rome. 

This man Letang was sallow earnestness itself; long 
and lean of face with a scanty student beard. Let us 
say he was thirty. He had no professional air; he was 
a student escaped from the Beaux Arts, a transplanted 
massier as it were of the atelier, where the anciens, the 
older students, help the nouveaux, the younger set, 
along. He was admirably patient, and seemed to be- 
lieve in the real value of the work he so candidly was 
doing; and at times he would say: ‘“‘From discussion 
comes the light.” So here was a student absorbed in 
teaching students, while Professor Ware conserved the 
worldly pose and poise of the cultural Boston of the 
time,—creating and maintaining thus an air of the 
legitimate and approved. 

There were perhaps not over thirty students, all 
told, in the architectural course, and Louis found them 
agreeable companions. Some of them were University 
graduates and therefore older than he and much more 
worldly wise, in their outlook. And there were as 
well a few advanced students. A few were there as 
rich men’s sons, to whom the architectural profession 
seemed to have advantages of tone. Arthur Roche was 
one of these. A few were there as poor men’s sons. 
They worked hard to become bread-winners. Among 
these was William Roche Ware, nephew of the Pro- 
fessor, and George Ferry of Milwaukee. What cer- 


[ 185: ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


tain others were there for, including Louis, is a some- 
what dubious surmise. But Louis began to like com- 
panionship for the first time. Hitherto he had been 
entirely neglectful of his school comrades, caring neither 
who nor what they were as persons. Here, however, 
there was space, freedom of movement and continued 
personal informal intercourse. So Louis began to put 
on a bit of swagger, to wear smart clothes, to shave 
away the down and to agitate a propaganda for inch- 
long side whiskers. A’ photograph of that date shows 
him as a clean-cut young man, with a rather intelligent 
expression, a heavy mop of black hair neatly parted for 
the occasion, a pearl stud set in immaculate white, and 
a suit up to the minute in material and cut. But in- 
asmuch as in this photograph he neither moves nor 
speaks, we are free to infer that, being young, there 
may be either something or nothing of real value there. 
Louis, however, knew more about that picture than 
the picture knew or could convey of him. For mem- 
ory, reviving, he knew all his past; and this does not in 
the least appear in the picture, nor what was of abid- 
ing significance in that past. So Louis posed a bit, sens- 
ing the reflected prestige and social value of a student at 
Tech.” But he did not altogether make a nuisance of 
himself, not a complete nuisance, for he was toppy 
rather than vain. 

Louis had gone at his studies faithfully enough. 
He learned not only to draw but to draw very well. 
He traced the “Five Orders of Architecture’ in a 
manner quite resembling copper plate, and he learned 
about diameters, modules, minutes, entablatures, col- 
umns, pediments and so forth and so forth, with the 
associated minute measurements and copious vocabu- 


[ 186 J 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


lary, all of which items he supposed at the time were 
intended to be received in unquestioning faith, as eter- 
nal verities. And he was told that these “O'rders’’ 
were ‘Classic,’ which implied an arrival at the goal 
of Platonic perfection of idea. 

But Louis by nature was not given to that kind of 
faith. His faith ever lay in the oft-seen creative power 
and glory of man. His faith lay indeed in freedom. 
The song of Spring was the song in his heart. ‘These 
rigid “Orders”? seemed to say, ‘“The book is closed; 
Art shall die.” Then it occurred to him: Why five 
orders? Why not one? Each of the five plainly tells 
a different story. Which one of them shall be sacro- 
sanct? And if one be sacrosanct the remaining four 
become invalid. Now it would appear by the testi- 
mony of the world of scholarship and learning that the 
Greek is sacrosanct; and of all the Greek, the Parthe- 
non is super-sacrosanct. ‘Therefore there was and has 
been in all time but the unique Parthenon; all else is 
invalid. Artis dead. And it should not be forgot that 
the unique Parthenon was builded by the ancient Greeks, 
by living men. It was physically upreared in an exact 
spot on the Acropolis at Athens, a timely demonstra- 
tion of Greek thought concerning ideas. 

Now after centuries of ruin the Parthenon is dead; 
therefore all is invalid, Art is dead. This line of 
reasoning amused Louis quaintly. It seemed to him 
romantic; much like a fairy tale. And this is all that 
he gathered from the ‘“Orders’—that they really 
were fairy tales of the long ago, now by the learned 
made rigid, mechanical and inane in the books he was 
pursuing, wherein they were stultified, for lack of com- 
mon sense and human feeling. Hence he spent much 


E187] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ANGIE 


time in the library, looking at pictures of buildings 
of the past that did not have pediments and columns. 
He found quite a few and became acquainted with 
‘styles’ and learned that styles were not considered 
sacrosanct, but merely human. ‘That there was a dif- 
ference in the intellectual and therefore social scale, 
between a style and an order. Professor Ware did 
not press matters thus; he did not go so far as to 
apotheosize the cognoscenti and the intelligentsia. He 
himself was quite human and in a measure detached. 
The misfortune was that in his lectures on the history 
of architecture he never looked his pupils in the eye, 
but by preference addressed an audience in his beard, 
in a low and confidential tone, ignoring a game of spit- 
ball underway. Yet a word or a phrase reached the 
open now and then concerning styles, construction and 
so forth, and at times he went to the blackboard and 
drew this and that very neatly. Louis picked up some- 
thing of all this melange, but his thought was mostly 
on the tower of the New Brattle Street Church, con- 
ceived and brought to light by the mighty Richard- 
son, undoubtedly for Louis’s special] delight; for was 
not here a fairy tale indeed! Meanwhile there were 
projets to be done and Eugene Letang surely earned 
his pay in the sweat of his brow. Prof. William Ware 
- did the higher criticism and frequently announced he 
had no use for “‘gim-crack”’ roofs. 

Thus passed the days, the weeks, the months in a 
sort of misch-masch of architectural theology, and 
Louis came to see that it was not upon the spirit but — 
upon the word that stress was laid, even though it 
were a weighty matter of sprinkling or immersion. He 
began to feel a vacancy in himself, the need of some- 


[ 188 ] 


Pipe 1 OBIOGRAPHY OF AN .IDEA 


thing more nutritious to the mind than a play of mario- 
nettes. He felt the need and the lack of a red-blooded 
explanation, of a valiant idea that should bring life to 
arouse his cemetery of orders and of styles, or at least 
to bring about a danse macabre to explain why the 
occupants had lived and died. 

Moreover, as time passed he began to discover that 
this school was but a pale reflection of the Ecole des 
Beaux Arts; and he thought it high time that he go to 
headquarters to learn if what was preached there as 
a gospel, really signified glad tidings. For Louis felt 
in his heart that what he had learned at “Tech” was 
after all but a polite introduction to the architectural 
Art,—as much as to say, “I am glad to meet you.” 
He reflected with a sort of despair that neither im- 
maculate Professor Ware nor sweaty, sallow, earnest 
Eugene Letang was a Moses Woolson. Ah, if but 
Moses Woolson had been versed in the story of archi- 
tecture as he was in that of English Literature, and 
had held the professorship; ah, what glowing flame 
would have come forth to cast its radiance like a rising 
sun and illuminate the past. But why dream such 
foolish dreams? 

Louis made up his mind that he would leave ‘“Tech” 
at the end of the school year, for he could see no future 
there. He was progressive, aggressive and impatient. 
He wished to live in the stream of life. He wished to 
be impelled by the power of living. He knew what he 
wanted very well. It behooved him he thought before 
going to the Beaux Arts, to see what architecture might 
be like in practice. He thought it might be advisable 
to spend a year in the office of some architect of 
standing, that he might see concrete preparations and 


[ 189 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY, OF ANVIPEe 


results; how, in effect, an actual building was brought 
about. So he said a warm good-bye to Boston,- to 
Wakefield (to his dear South Reading of the past), 
to all his friends, and made straightway for Phila- 
delphia where he was to find his uncle and his grandpa. 
On the way he stopped over in New York City for a 
few days. Richard M. Hunt was the architectural 
lion there, and the dean of the profession. Louis 
called upon him in his den, told him his plans and 
was patted on the back and encouraged as an enter- 
prising youngster. He listened to the mighty man’s 
tale of his life in Paris with Lefuel, and was then 
turned over to an assistant named Stratton, a recent 
arrival from the Ecole to whom he repeated the tale of 
his projects. 

Friend Stratton was most amiable in greeting, and 
gave Louis much time, receiving him in the fraternal 
spirit of an older student toward a younger. He 
sketched the life in Paris and the School—and in clos- 
ing asked Louis to keep in touch with him and be sure 
to call on him on the way abroad. Thus Louis, proud 
and inflated, went on his joyous way to face the world. 
He arrived in Philadelphia in due time, as they say. 
He had noticed in New York a sharper form of 
speech, an increase of energetic action over that he 
had left behind, and also a rougher and more arrogant 
type of life Stratton had mentioned that Louis, on his 
arrival in Philadelphia, should look up the firm of 
Furness & Hewitt, architects, and try to find a place 
with them. But this was not Louis’s way of doing. 
Once settled down in the large quiet village, he began 
to roam the streets, looking quizzically at buildings 
as he wandered. On the west side of South Broad 


[ 190 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


street a residence, almost completed, caught his eye 
like a flower by the roadside. He approached, exam- 
ined it with curious care, without and within. Here was 
something fresh and fair to him, a human note, as 
though someone were talking. He inquired as to the 
architect and was told: Furness & Hewitt. Now, he 
saw plainly enough that this was not the work of 
two men but of one, for he had an instinctive sense 
of physiognomy, and all buildings thus made their 
direct appeal to him, pleasant or unpleasant. 

He made up his mind that next day he would enter 
the employ of said Furness & Hewitt, they to have 
no voice in the matter, for his mind was made up. 
So next day he presented himself to Frank Furness 
and informed him he had come to enter his employ. 
Frank Furness was a curious character. He affected 
the English in fashion. He wore loud plaids, and a 
scowl, and from his face depended fan-like a marvelous 
red beard, beautiful in tone with each separate hair 
delicately crinkled from beginning to end. Moreover, 
his face was snarled and homely as an English bull- 
dog’s. Louis’s eyes were riveted, in infatuation, to this 
beard, as he listened to a string of oaths yards long. 
For it seems that after he had delivered his initial fiat, 
Furness looked at him half blankly, half enraged, as at 
another kind of dog that had slipped in through the 
door. His first question had been as to Louis’s experi- 
ence, to which Louis replied, modestly enough, that he 
had just come from the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology in Boston. ‘This answer was the detona- 
tor that set off the mine which blew up in fragments 
all the schools in the land and scattered the professors 
headless and limbless to the four quarters of earth and 


[191] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ANGIE es 


hell. Louis, he said, was a fool. He said Louis was 
an idiot to have wasted his time in a place where one 
was filled with sawdust, like a doll, and became a 
prig, a snob, and an ass. 

As the smoke blew away he said: “Of course you 
don’t know anything and are full of damnable con- 
Celts 

Louis agreed to the ignorance; demurred as to con- 
ceit; and added that he belonged to that rare class who 
were capable of learning, and desired to learn. ‘This 
answer mollified the dog-man, and he seemed intrigued 
that Louis stared at him so pertinaciously. At last 
he asked Louis what in hell had brought him there, 
anyway? This was the opening for which Louis had 
sagaciously been waiting through the storm. He told 
Frank Furness all about his unaided discovery of the 
dwelling on Broad street, how he had followed, so to 
speak from the nugget to the solid vein; that here 
he was and here he would remain; he had made up 
his mind as to that, and he looked Frank Furness in 
the eye. Then he sang a song of praise like a youthful 
bard of old to his liege lord, steering clear of too 
gross adulation, placing all on a high plane of accom- 
plishment. It was here, Louis said, one could really 
learn. Frank Furness admitted as true a part of what 
Louis had said, waving the rest away as one pleasantly 
overpraised, and said: Only the Greeks knew how to 
build. 

“Of course, you don’t want any pay,” he said To 
which Louis replied that ten dollars a week would be 
a necessary honorarium. 

“All right,” said he of the glorious beard, with 
something scraggy on his face, that might have been a 


Lig2al 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


smile. ‘‘Come tomorrow morning for a trial, but I 
prophesy you won’t outlast a week.” So Louis came. 
At the end of that week Furness said, ‘“‘You may stay 
another week,’’ and at the end of that week Furness 
said, ‘“You may stay as long as you like.’’ Oh what a 
joy! Louis’s first task was to retrace a set of plans 
complete for a Savings Institution to be erected on 
Chestnut street. This he did so systematically and 
in so short a time that he won his spurs at once. In 
doing this work he was but carrying out the impul- 
sion of Moses Woolson’s training in accuracy and 
speed; and Moses Woolson followed him thereafter 
everywhere. 

The other members of the firm was George Hewitt, 
a slender, moustached person, pale and reserved, who 
seldom relaxed from pose. It was he who did the 
Victorian Gothic in its pantalettes, when a church 
building or something of that sort was on the boards. 
With precision, as though he held his elements by 
pincers, he worked out these decorous sublimities of 
inanity, as per the English current magazines and other 
English sources. He was a clean draftsman, and be- 
lieved implicitly that all that was good was English. 
Louis regarded him with admiration as a draftsman, 
and with mild contempt as a man who kept his nose 
in books. Frank Furness “‘made buildings out of his 
head.’ That suited Louis better. And Furness as a 
freehand draftsman was extraordinary. He had Louis 
hypnotized, especially when he drew and swore at the 
same time. 

But George Hewitt had a younger brother named 
John, and John was foreman of the shop. He was a 
husky, smooth-faced fellow under thirty. Every fea- 


[ 193 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


ture in his clean cut, rather elongated face, bespoke 
intelligence and kindness, in fact a big heart. He had 
taken a fancy to Louis from the start. He was the 
‘practical man’ and Louis ran to him for advice when- 
ever he found himself in a tight place. John was 
patience itself and made everything clear with dainty 
sketches and explanatory notes. These drawings were 
beautiful and Louis frankly told him so. He begged 
John to teach him ‘touch’ and how to make such 
sketches, and especially how to “indicate” so crisply. 
This John did. In fact, it was not long before he had 
made of Louis a draftsman of the upper Crust, and 
Louis’s heart went out to lovable John in sheer 
gratitude. 

In looking back upon that time Louis Sullivan gives 
thanks that it was his great good fortune to have made 
his entry into the practical world in an office where 
standards were so high—where talent was so mani- 
festly taken for granted, and the atmosphere the free 
and easy one of a true work shop savoring of the guild 
where craftsmanship was paramount and personal. 
And again he goes back to the day of Moses Woolson 
and his discipline. We may say in truth that Moses 
Woolson put him there. For without that elastic alert- 
ness and courage, that grimness Moses Woolson im- 
parted, it is sure that Louis would not have broken 
through the barrier of contempt in that first interview. 

Louis worked very hard day and night. At first 
he had lived with his grandpa and uncle in West Phila- 
delphia. But soon he decided to move into town to 
be nearer the office and to be freer to study into the 
small hours. His relaxation on Sundays was Fair- 
mount Park and a walk up the rough road of the 


[ 194 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


Wissahickon valley, a narrow beauteous wilderness 
such as Louis had never seen, and with which he was 
completely charmed. He loved the solitude through 
which the Wissahickon purled its way. The com- 
panionship of the wild was soothing to him. The isola- 
tion gave him comfort and surcease. ‘I‘hus passed a 


hot summer. 
* * x 


The offices of Furness & Hewitt occupied the entire 
top floor of a new, brick, four-story building at the 
northeast corner of Third street and Chestnut. 

One day in September, it was very warm, all win- 
dows were open for air, the force was wearily at 
work. As they worked, there came through the open 
windows a murmur, barely noticed at first; then this 
murmur became a roar, with wild shouting. Then, 
all to the windows. Louis saw, far below, not pave- 
ment and sidewalks, but a solid black mass of frantic 
men, crowded, jammed from wall to wall. The offices 
of Jay Cooke & Co. were but a short distance south on 
Third street. Word came up that Jay Cooke & Co. 
had just closed its doors. Louis saw it all, as he could 
see down both Chestnut street and Third. Chestnut 
westward from Third also was a solid mass. The 
run on the banks had begun. ‘The devastating panic 
of 1873 was on, in its mad career. Louis was shocked, 
appalled at the sight. He was too young, too inex- 
perienced, to understand what it really meant, even 
when told it was a panic in finance, that credit had 
crumbled to dust, that men were ruined, and insane 
with despair; that this panic would spread like wild- 
fire over the land leaving ruin in its wake everywhere. 


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THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


And still he could not understand what had brought 
it about. 

The office held steady for a while; there was work 
on hand which had progressed so far that it must be 
completed. 

One day in November Frank Furness said: “‘Sulli- 
van, I’m sorry, the jig is up. There'll be no more 
building. The office now is running dry. You've 
done well, mighty well. I like you. I wish you might 
stay. But as you were the last to come it is only just 
you should be first to go.” With that he slipped a bill 
into Louis’s hand, and wished him farewell and better 
days. 

Within a week Louis took the Pennsylvania train 
for Chicago. He saw the great valley of the Susque- 
hanna; surmounted the huge Alleghenies; passed along 
the great descending Horse-Shoe Curve, the marvel of 
the day; and then night fell. He was aroused and 
broadened by what he had seen. It was all new. His 
map was enlarged. So was his breadth of view; his 
inner wealth. 

Next morning he was utterly amazed and bewildered 
at the sight of the prairies of northern Indiana. They 
were startling in novelty. How could such things be! 
Stretching like a floor to the far horizon,—not a tree 
except by a watercourse or on a solitary “island.” It 
was amazing. Here was power—power greater than 
the mountains. Soon Louis caught glimpses of a great 
lake, spreading also like a floor to the far horizon, 
superbly beautiful in color, under a lucent sky. Here 
again was power, naked power, naked as the prairies, 
greater than the mountains. And over all spanned the 
dome of the sky, resting on the rim of the horizon far 


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away on all sides, eternally calm overhead, holding an 
atmosphere pellucid and serene. And here again was 
a power, a vast open power, a power greater than the 
tiny mountains. Here, in full view, was the light of 
the world, companion of the earth, a power greater 
than the lake and the prairie below, but not greater 
than man in his power: So Louis thought. 

The train neared the city; it broke into the city; 
it plowed its way through miles of shanties dishearten- 
ing and dirty gray. It reached its terminal at an open 
shed. Louis tramped the platform, stopped, looked 
toward the city, ruins around him; looked at the sky; 
and as one alone, stamped his foot, raised his hand and 
cried in full voice: 


THIS IS THE PLACE FOR ME! 


That day was the day before Thanksgiving in the 
year Eighteen Hundred Seventy-three. 


[ 197 ] 


CHAPTER XI. 


Chicago 


EARD and seen by all stands the word PER- 
H SONALITY, in solitary and unique grandeur. 

Heard and seen by all stands the word Per- 
sonality, eminent, respectable, much admired. 

Heard and seen by all in the crowd it calls together, 
and through which it deftly wanders like a shrewd 
hunch-back, the word personality, now a dwarf gri- 
maces salaciously. 

And now it is a word on fire; a tiger in the jungle; 
a python hanging from the limb, very still. 

How deep, how shallow is that which we call the 
soul. 

How monstrous, how fluent, how vagrant and timo- 
rous, how alert are the living things we call words. 
They are the giants and the fairies, the hob-goblins and 
the sprites; the warrior and the priest, the lowly and 
the high; the watch-dog and the sheep; the tyrant and 
the slave,—of that wonder-world we call speech. 

How like hammers they strike. How like aspens 
they quiver. How like a crystal pool, a rivulet there- 
from, becomes a river moving sinuously between the 
hills, growing stronger, broader as its affluents pour in 
their tributary power; and now looms the estuary, and 
the Ocean of Life. , 

Words are most malignant, the most treacherous 
possession of mankind. ‘They are saturated with the 
sorrows of all time. ‘They hold in most unstable 
equilibrium the vast heritage of man’s folly, his despair, 
his wrestling with the angel whose name is Fate; his 


[ 198 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


vanity, his pride before a fall, his ever-resurrecting 
hope—arising as a winged spirit from the grave of 
disaster, to flit in the sunshine for a while, to return 
to the dust and arise again as his civilizations, so labo- 
riously built up, have crumbled one by one. And yet 
all the beauty, all the joy, all the love that man has 
known, all his kindness, all his yearnings, all his dreams 
for better things; his passionate desire for peace and an 
anchorage within a universe that has filled him with 
fear and mystery and adoration; his daily round of toil, 
and commonplaces; his assumption of things as they 
are; his lofty and sublime contemplations, his gorgeous 
imageries; his valor, his dogged will, his patience in 
long suffering, his ecstacies, his sacrifices small and 
great—even to the casting aside of his life for a 
thought, a compassion, an ambition—all these are held 
bound up in words; hence words are dangerous when 
let loose. They may mean man’s destruction, they 
may signify a way out of the dark. For Light is a 
word, Courage is a word, and Vision is another. There- 
fore, it is wise to handle words with caution. Their 
content is so complex and explosive; and in combina- 
tions they may work beautiful or dreadful things. 

_ All these thoughts have flowed from the one word, 
Personality, with which we began. 

At Louis’s age upon reaching Chicago, personality 
meant little as a formal word. He recognized by sight 
and feeling, by observing action and appearances, many 
of the phases of the powers of man upon which a word 
is built for use. 

For words in themselves he had come to form a 
passing aversion, since he had noted their tendency to 
eclipse the vibrant values of immediate reality. There- 


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fore, he preferred to think and feel and contemplate 
without the use of words. Indeed, one of his favorite 
pastimes was deliberately to think and feel and con- 
template without the use of words, to create thus a 
wordless universe, with himself, silent, at the center 
of it all. Thus came about a widening clarity; an 
increased sensitiveness to values; a separate isolation 
of the permanent and the ephemeral; and it seemed, 
also, as though within his small, self-created silence he 
listened to the strident noises of the world as coming 
from without. All this Louis did with buoyant jocu- 
larity, for fun, for “practice” as he called it. And yet 
now and then a word came to him of a sudden, in sur- 
prise, a sort of keyword that unlocked, that opened and 
revealed. Among such was the word self-expression, 
which gave him a rude shock of hilarity and wonder. 
He said: What !—which expressed quite well what he 
meant. 

For the first week in the strange city, Louis was the 
prodigal returned; and the fatted calf was offered up 
in joy. The next week he spent in exploration. As 
everybody said: “Chicago had risen phoenix-like from 
its ashes.”’ But many ashes remained, and the sense 
of ruin was still blended with ambition of recovery. 
Louis thought it all magnificent and wild: A crude 
extravaganza: An intoxicating rawness: A sense of 
big things to be done. For “Big’’ was the word. “Big- 
gest’’ was preferred, and the “biggest in the world” 
was the braggart phrase on every tongue. Chicago had 
had the biggest conflagration “in the world.” It was 
the biggest grain and lumber market “in the world.” 
It slaughtered more hogs than any city “‘in the world.” 
It was the greatest railroad center, the greatest this, 


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THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


and the greatest that. It shouted itself hoarse in 
réclame. ‘The shouters could not well be classed with 
the proverbial liars of Ecclesiastes, because what they 
said was true; and had they said, in the din, we are the 
crudest, rawest, most savagely ambitious dreamers and 
would-be doers in the world, that also might be true. 
For with much gloating of self-flattering they bragged: 
‘We are the most heavily mortgaged city in the world.” 
Louis rather liked all this, for his eye was ever on the 
boundless prairie and the mighty lake. All this froth- 
ing at the mouth amused him at first, but soon he saw 
the primal power assuming self-expression amid na- 
ture’s impelling urge. These men had vision. What 
they saw was real, they saw it as destiny. 

The elevated wooden sidewalks in the business dis- 
trict, with steps at each street corner, seemed shabby 
and grotesque; but when Louis learned that this meant 
that the city had determined to raise itself three feet 
more out of the mud, his soul declared that this resolve 
meant high courage; that the idea was big; that there 
must be big men here. The shabby walks now became 
a symbol of stout hearts. 

The pavements were vile, because hastily laid; they 
erupted here and there and everywhere in ooze. Most 
of the buildings, too, were paltry. When Louis came 
to understand the vast area of disaster, he saw clearly 
and with applause that this new half-built city was a 
hasty improvization made in dire need by men who did 
not falter. And again spread out in thought, the 
boundless prairie and the mighty lake, and what they 
meant for men of destiny, even as the city lay stretched 
out, unseemly as a Caliban. 


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In spite of the panic, there was stir; an energy that 
made him tingle to be in the game. 

So he bethought him he would enter the office of 
some architect; for a few buildings showed talent in 
design, and a certain stability. Outstanding among 
these was the Portland Block, a four-story structure of 
pressed brick and sandstone at Washington and Dear- 
born Streets. So he inquired concerning the architect 
of this structure and was told the name was Jenney: 
Major Jenney; or in full, Major William Le Baron 
Jenney. There were still some buildings under way, 
or arranged for, on the momentum of pre-panic days, 
though the town was otherwise badly hurt. A great 
fire, and a panic in finance, certainly made load enough 
for any community to carry, but Chicago, hard hit, 
bore up bravely. 

Louis learned incidentally that the Portland Block 
had in fact been designed by a clever draftsman named 
Cudell. This gave him a shock. For he had supposed 
that all architects made buildings out of their own 
heads, not out of the heads of others. His experience 
in the ofice of Furness & Hewitt, in Philadelphia, it 
seems, had given him an erroneous idea. Yet the new 
knowledge cheered him in this hope: That he might 
some day make buildings out of his head for architects 
who did not have any heads of their own for such 
purpose. 

He had once supposed that the genius for creating 
ugliness was peculiarly a Yankee monopoly; but he 
later found in New York and Philadelphia that almost 
all the buildings in these cities were of the same crass- 
ness of type; a singularly sordid, vulgar vernacular in 
architectural speech. So when he found the same thing 


[ 202 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


almost universally in evidence in Chicago, he assumed 
that this illiteracy was general, and a jargon peculiar 
to the American people at large. ‘The only difference 
he could see between the vernacular of the East and 
that of the West was that one was older and staler; 
and he cited Fifth Avenue, New York, as an instance. 
It is true that, scattered through the east were archi- 
tects of book-attainment in fair number, and a few of 
marked personality and red blood—particularly one 
Henry Richardson, he of the strong arm and virile 
mind—sole giant of his day. In Chicago there were 
two or three who were bookish and timid, and there 
were some who were intelligently conscientious in the 
interest of their clients. Among the latter may be men- 
tioned Major Jenney. The Major was a free-and-easy 
cultured gentleman, but not an architect except by cour- 
tesy of terms. His true profession was that of engi- 
neer. He had received his technical training, or 
education at the Ecole Polytechnique in France, and 
had served through the Civil War as Major of Engi- 
neers. He had been with Sherman on the march to 
the sea. 

He spoke French with an accent so atrocious that 
it jarred Louis’s teeth, while his English speech jerked 
about as though it had St. Vitus’s dance. He was mon- 
strously pop-eyed, with hanging mobile features, sen- 
suous lips, and he disposed of matters easily in the 
manner of a war veteran who believed he knew what 
was what. Louis soon found out that the Major was 
not, really, in his heart, an engineer at all, but by 
nature, and in toto, a bon vivant, a gourmet. He lived 
at Riverside, a suburb, and Louis often smiled to see 
him carry home by their naked feet, with all plumage, 


[ 203 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


a brace or two of choice wild ducks, or other game 
birds, or a rare and odorous cheese from abroad. And 
the Major knew his vintages, every one, and his sauces, 
every one; he also was a master of the chafing dish 
and the charcoal grille. All in all the Major was eftu- 
sive; a hale fellow well met, an officer of the Loyal 
Legion, a welcome guest anywhere, but by preference 
a host. He was also an excellent raconteur, with a 
lively sense of humor and a certain piquancy of fancy 
that seemed Gallic. In his stories or his monologues, 
his unique vocal mannerisms or gyrations or gymnastics 
were a rich asset, as he squeaked or blew, or lost his 
voice, or ran in arpeggio from deep bass to harmonics, 
or took octaves, or fifths, or sevenths, or ninths in 
spasmodic splendor. His audience roared, for his sto- 
ries were choice, and his voice, as one caught bits of it, 
was plastic, rich and sweet, and these bits, in sequence 
and collectively had a warming effect. “The Major 
was really and truly funny. Louis thought him funny 
all the time, and noted with glee how akin were the 
Mayjar’s thoughts to the vertiginous gyrations of his 
speech. ‘Thus we have a semblance of the Major’s 
relations to the justly celebrated art of architecture. 

The Major took Louis in immediately upon appli- 
cation, as he needed more help. And to the fact that 
Louis had been at “Tech” he attached the highest 
importance—as alumni of any school are apt to do; 
so much for temperamental personality. 

There was work enough in the office to keep five 
men busy and a boy, provided they took intervals of 
rest, which they did. In the Major’s absences, which 
were frequent and long, bedlam reigned. John Edel- 
mann would mount a drawing table and make a howl- 


[ 204 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


ing stump speech on greenback currency, or single tax, 
while at the same time Louis, at the top of his voice, 
sang selections from the oratorios, beginning with his 
favorite, “Why Do the Nations so Furiously Rage 
Together’; and so all the force furiously raged to- 
gether in joyous deviltry, and bang-bang-bang. For 
a moment Louis quieted the riot and sang, “Ye people 
rend your hearts, rend your hearts, but not your gar- 
ments,’ whereupon there followed a clamor of affronts 
directed toward Elijah the Prophet. The office rat 
suddenly appears: ‘Cheese it, Cullies; the Boss!”’, 
which in high English signifies: ‘Gentlemen, Major 
William Le Baron Jenney, our esteemed benefactor, 
approaches!’’ Sudden silence, sudden industry, intense 
concentration. The Major enters and announces his 
pleasure in something less than three octaves. ‘Thus 
the day’s work comes out fairly even. For ‘“‘when they 
work they work; and when they don’t they just don’t.”’ 

On the stool next to Louis sat patient Martin Roche, 
now, and for many years, of Holabird & Roche. 
There was a tall, fleshy, mild-voiced American-Ger- 
man who had taught school; and a rachitic, sharp- 
faced, droll, nasal Yankee, who drawled comic 
cynicisms and did the engineering. ‘The old man,”’ 
he would say, “is some engineer. . . . Like the Al- 
mighty, he watches the ‘sparrow’s fall,’ but when it 
comes to the fons he’s a l-e-e-t-l-e shy now and then, 
and sometimes then and now. You fellows work for 
glory, but I just work for coin.” And then he rasped 
in song: ‘And as I said be-f-o-o-o-r, don’t fall in 
love with a groceryman what keeps a grocery store,” 
and thus he cackled on, as he figured strains; this time, 
he said, on a basis of three sparrows, while Louis 


[ 205 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


hummed: ‘‘And as I said before, don’t fall in love 
with a groceryman what keeps a grocery store.” 

John was the foreman. By nature indolent, by 
vanity and practice very rapid. He laughed to scorn 
and scattered to dust those that were slow; and would 
illustrate, in roseate tales, how fast he had done this 
and that. It speedily became evident that John was 
a hero-worshipper, as John blandly worshipped John 
in the presence of all; and Louis casually remarked 
that John’s unconsciousness of his own personality was 
remarkable to the point of the fabulous and the legend- 
ary, whereupon they became fast friends. 

Louis had instantly noted in John a new personality; 
brawny, twenty-four, bearded, unkempt, careless, his 
voice rich, sonorous, modulant, his vocabulary an over- 
flowing reservoir. A born orator—he must talk or 
perish. His inveterate formula was, “I myself’—did 
—was—said—am—think—know—to tthe sixteenth 
decimal and the nth power of egoism. It gradually 
dawned upon Louis that he had run across a 
THINKER, a profound thinker, a man of immense 
range of reading, a brain of extraordinary keenness, 
strong, vivid, that ranged in its operations from satur- 
nine intelligence concerning men and their motives, to 
the highest transcendentalisms of German metaphysics. 
He was as familiar with the great philosophers as with 
the daily newspapers. As an immediate psychologist, 
never before or since has Louis met his equal in vital- 
ity, in verity, and in perspicacity of thought. He, John, 
knew all that all the psychologists had written, and 
much, of his own discernment, that they but recently 
have begun to unveil. Louis found in John a highly 
gifted talker, and John found in Louis a practised 


[ 206 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


listener, so their bond of union may be summed up 
in the token “I myself.”’ 

One day John explained his theory of suppressed 
functions; and Louis, startled, saw in a flash that this 
meant the real clue to the mystery that lay behind 
the veil of appearances. Louis was peculiarly subject 
to shock from unexpected explosion of a single word; 
and when the word “‘function’’ was detonated by the 
word “suppressed,” a new, an immense idea came sud- 
denly into being and lit up his inner and his outer 
world as one. Thus, with John’s aid, Louis saw the 
outer and the inner world more clearly, and the world 
of men began to assume a semblance of form, and of 
function. But, alas, what he had assumed to be a 
single vast veil of mystery that might perhaps lift of 
a sudden, like a cloud, proved in experience to be a 
series of gossamer hangings that must slowly rise up 
one by one, in a grand transformation scene, such as he 
had viewed when, as a small boy, he saw “The Forty 
Thieves,” where all was transformed into reality by 
a child’s imagination. Now would it be possible for 
him, through the reverse power of imagination, to 
cause the veils of the hidden world to rise and reveal? 
On this threshold, for a passing moment, he faltered. 
Then resurging courage came. 

Louis soon noticed that while he himself had a clear 
program in life, John had none. That all this talk, 
while of deep import to him, was for John merely 
luxurious self-indulgence and a luscious hour with pa- 
rade of vanity; that he, the elder, regarded the younger 
with patronage, much as a bright child, but a tyro 
in the active world; whiie Louis saw that John was 


[ 207 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


merely drifting. In this regard each kept his thoughts 
to himself, while encouraging the other. 

In Philadelphia, one hot summer’s evening, Louis 
had gone to the Academy of Music to hear a Thomas 
Concert. During the course of the program he had 
become listless, when of a sudden came the first bars 
of a piece so fiery, that, startled, all alert, he listened 
in amazement to the end. What was this? It was 
new—brand new. ‘The program now consulted, said: 
Vorspiel, Third Act, Lohengrin—Richard Wagner. 
Who was Richard Wagner? Why had he never heard 
of him? He must look him up; for one could see at a 
glance that this piece was a work of genius. 

He mentioned this episode to John Edelmann, 
shortly after they had become acquainted; and John 
said: Why, at the North Side Turner Hall, Hans 
Balatka and his fine orchestra give a concert every 
Sunday afternoon, and Hans is introducing Wagner 
to Chicago; let’s go. ‘They went. 

Louis heard the Pilgrims’ Chorus—and raved. 
They went every Sunday afternoon until Spring. There 
followed in course, the Vorspiel to Lohengrin, to Die 
Meistersinger, to the Flying Dutchman, the Ride of 
the Walkyrie, the amazing fabric of the overture to 
Tristan und Isolde, the immense solemnity of Sieg- 
fried’s Tod, the exquisite shimmering beauty of the 
Waldweben. 

Louis needed no interpreter. It was all plain to him. 
He saw it all. It was all as though addressed to him- 
self alone. And as piece after piece was deployed, 
before his open mind, he saw arise a Mighty Person- 
ality—a great Free Spirit, a Poet, a Master Crafts- 
man, striding in power through a vast domain that was 


[ 208 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


his own, that imagination and will had bodied forth out 
of himself. Suffice it—as useless to say—Louis be- 
came an ardent Wagnerite. Here, indeed, had been 
lifted a great veil, revealing anew, refreshing as dawn, 
the enormous power of man to build as a mirage, the 
fabric of his dreams, and with his wand of toil to make 
them real. Thus Louis’s heart was stirred, his courage 
was ten-folded in this raw city by the Great Lake in 
the West. 

Yet John had the good sense to caution Louis to let 
_the philosophers alone for a while; to let them lie in 
possession — paraphrasing Siegfried’s Dragon — as 
each had merely built an elaborate scaffolding, but no 
edifice within, and each was more concerned with the 
symmetry of his scaffold than with aught else, unless it 
be to scorn the flimsy scaffoldings of others. He said 
that Schopenhauer showed some intelligence, because 
he was a man of the world, while the others were more 
like spiders, weaving, in the gloom of obscurantism, 
festoons of cobwebs in their dens, far from the light 
of the world of men and things. That Louis had bet- 
ter let the ding an sich—the ultimate thing—alone, and 
keep his eyes on the world as it is; that he would find 
plenty to interest him there, and that if he had the eye- 
sight he would find a great romance there, also a great 
tragedy. That—quoting Carlyle,—he said: ‘‘The eye 
sees that which it brings the power to see’’; which again 
shocked Louis; for the thought rose up: Maybe the 
veil is not without, but covers my own eyes; as John 
went on, preaching of the world of men and their 
significance, for worth or ill, in the social order, Louis 
again was shocked at the words “‘social order.” 

But their talks were not always so strenuous and dis- 


£209) 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


turbing; for John was mercurial—an inventor of self- 
moods—a poseur, infatuated with the pessimistic atti- 
tudinizing he assumed at will, for the sake of the sen- 
sation of gazing into the mirror of his thoughts which 
reflected the image of one he deemed the greatest phi- 
losopher and psychic of all time, still unknown to the 
world. But John had many other moods, as many as 
he chose to summon, and on the whole, he was jolly 
bombastic, much alive, and in public, loud of speech in 
an over-weening beggary to attract attention, and 
thereby feed his hungry vanity. But withal he was 
Louis’s warm friend, and showed it by a devotion and 
self-sacrifice singular in one so absorbed in self wor- 
ship. And be this said here and now: The passing 
years have isolated and revealed John Edelmann, as 
unique in personality among fine and brilliant minds. 
Be assured he will not turn in his grave, unless in bliss, 
should he hear it said that he was the benefactor and 
Louis the parasite and profiteer. 

They were both fond of exercise, and frequented the 
gymnasium. John, though not so very tall, was huge 
in bulk and over-muscled. He excelled in feats of 
strength, while Louis was dexterous and nimble in 
lighter work. As spring approached, John talked more 
and more about the ‘‘Lotos Club,’’ whose members had 
boat houses on the bank of the Calumet, near the 
bridge where the I. C. R. R. crosses. He spoke of a 
“Great Chief,” one William B. Curtis by name, who 
had founded the Club, who had beaten Dr. Winship 
at heavy lifting; was a champion all-round athlete, and 
had chosen the club name because of a bed of Lotus 
not far down the sluggish stream. He had said briefly, 
he preferred the Greek word Lotos to the Latin Lotus. 


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So in the spring the two went to live in John’s boat- 
house. There were three other houses, one occupied 
by said William B. Curtis, who, when asked, said his 
middle name was Bill,—and ‘Bill’ he was called. 
Louis was simply wild with joy over this new life. He 
was now actually a member of a real athletic club. He 
had never been a member of any club. And these 
young men, all older than he, were heroes in his eyes, if 
not demi-gods; they showed such skill in performance, 
and were so amiable toward a youngster. The mighty 
“Bill” was 38, so he said. He was the man of brains 
who never bragged. He was too cynical to brag, and 
deadly literal in speech. As a mathematician he had 
revised Haswell. His brain was hard, his manner hu- 
man. He knew his anatomy, and had devised special 
exercises to develop each separate muscle in his body. 
So when in the sunlight he walked the pier for a 
plunge, he was a sight for the Greeks, and Louis was 
enraptured at the play of light and shade. He had won 
a barrel full of medals and he said he kept them there. 

By a strange paradox he detested display. He had 
no vanity. He had a quizzical sense of humor which 
he displayed when he said the club was no club, because 
there were no dues, no entrance fees, no by-laws. All 
that was needed in an applicant was a sound constitu- 
tion and a paper shell. And yet he said he had named 
the Club the Lotos because of his love of flowers, and 
the nearby presence of the lotos field. His brain was 
remarkably well stocked with varied information of 
the so-called higher sort, but he seldom talked of such, 
except briefly in derision. He was the exact opposite 
of John, but with an equal egoism which he kept under 
cover, and which passed as modesty—although he 


Eoule} 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


cared not in the least. All this interested Louis, who 
was beginning to observe men as individuals, and to 
study personalities; to observe in particular the work- 
ing of men’s brains; for he had begun to notice, with 
keen and growing interest, that the thoughts of a man 
corresponded exactly to his real nature. So Louis dis- 
cerned in Bill a highly trained mind, self-centered and 
selfish in its nature. Louis guessed that the man had 
a past; that at least there was something hidden. So 
he spoke to John, who said: “You are right. -Bill is 
not in athletics for fun, but for his health. Medals 
interest him only as tokens of condition. When he was 
a young man he was attacked by consumption. ‘The 
doctors gave him up. Bill took to open air exercise. 
With his scientific brain you can imagine how systema- 
tically he went about it. He effected a cure; but now 
he has only one lung—would you guess it?” Briefly 
to complete the story of this man, the most remarkable 
that has ever appeared in the field of amateur athletics, 
—he became editor of ‘“‘Wilkes Spirit of the Times” and 
remained such for years. At the age of 63 he, with a 
companion, was making the ascent of Mt. Washington 
when a blizzard overtook them near the summit. The 
bodies were found a quarter of a mile apart. 

The effect of Bill Curtis upon Louis was not merely 
that of a magnificent athlete and man of brains, but 
primarily, and most valuably that of exemplar in the 
use of the imagination and the will, doggedly to carry 
out a program. ‘That a consumptive should have risen 
to become a great athlete, was enough for him. The 
living fact profoundly and permanently strengthened 
Louis’s courage in carrying out his own program. 
Though Louis did not especially warm up to the man, 


212] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


because their natures were not sufficiently alike, he has 
never forgotten what he then owed to the force of 
example of a clear brain. So Louis added “Bill” to 
his growing collection of personalities... 


*K *K * 


In the carrying out of his own program Louis’s 
thoughts turned definitely towards France; which 
meant, specifically, the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He 
wished now to go to the fountain head of theory. Of 
practice he had enough for present purpose. 

Thus on 10 July, 1874, he sailed from New York on 
the steamship Britannic, on her maiden trip eastward. 
Before she left her pier there were grand doings aboard 
—flowers, speeches, high society. For she was pro- 
claimed “The Pride of the Seas.” She displaced three 
thousand tons. She was headed for Liverpool. 

Prior to leaving, Louis called again upon his friend 
Stratton in New York, and was given further pointers 
—first of all, to call at the American Legation. 

Louis found the ocean trip disappointing and stupid, 
with exception of the ship’s great vertical engines and 
deep stoke-hole, the various apparatus, and the work- 
ing of the ship by officers and crew, which he studied 
carefully, as he had become much interested in engi- 
neering. 

While Louis was leaning on the railing, watching, 
with vague emotion, his native land fade in the mist, 
and sink from sight, as though irrevocably lost, he felt 
a pang of nostalgia; the sea seemed so lonely—after 
brisk excitement. Near by at the rail were others also 
watching the land disappear. As it became dim, a 
grating voice spoke out: ‘“Thank God we have seen 


[ 213 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


the last of the damned Yankees.” The words were 
said in savage bitterness and contempt. Another voice 
agreed. Louis turned to the left and saw two short 
swarthy men, black bearded, black eyed. For a mo- 
ment Louis thought it would be nice to throw them both 
overboard. He looked at them, wide-eyed, with some- 
thing of the sort in view, and they talked on in lower 
tones. Louis was puzzled by the speech. Why 
“damned Yankees’? he asked himself. Why this 
hatred, this anathema? ‘The phrase sounded racial; 
it stuck in his mind like a burr. It was said with such 
conviction as to seem impersonal; as though included 
in something larger. Never had he heard such viru- 
lence addressed to his own people. He pondered long 
over this; were the ““Yankees”’ a hated people? If so, 
who hated them? 

Louis did not know a soul aboard. He was proud 
of the ship, proud to be on it, but he was lonesome, 
and no one paid the slightest heed as he prowled up 
and down, in and out. The weather was fair all the 
way. The waves seemed eternally to roll and roll,— 
without crests. A vast expanse of water, dark blue, 
almost black; the circular horizon always present and 
only fifteen miles away. Never had his world seemed 
so small in fact, yet so limitless and grim in suggestion. 
He seemed to be always at the top of the world, al- 
ways in the self-same spot, always in the midst of dead- 
ening monotony; day after day not a sail in sight, not 
a sign of a storm. Day after day confined to a solitary 
ship moving on through a wilderness of water, the ves- 
sel rhythmically rolling and heaving in its course, night 
and day, night and day; would it never end? Laughter, 
aboard, had long since ceased. Where was the ro- 


[ 214 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


mance of the high seas? ‘The end came in a total lapse 
of ten days. The waters turned blue and then green. 
The boat came to a stop off Queenstown. Enshrouded 
in heavy mist, Louis saw a coast line of mountains or 
high hills. This is all he ever saw of Ireland. 

The way along St. George’s Channel seemed glori- 
ous. The clear, deep waters, and the glimpses of coast 
line restored his spirits as he felt his normal condition 
of clarity return. Here at last was an old world, 
which, as a new world he was to discover. How high 
his hopes, how buoyant his thoughts, as they swung 
into the Mersey. England came near to him, and 
nearer, then slowly nearer, then in contact, as the ship 
came to dock. Then came all the bustle and the joyous 
greetings about him, as Louis pressed his foot on Eng- 
lish soil. Ah, what fluttering emotion, the overflow 
of bubbling youth. At last, at last, he had arrived 
where for years he had dreamed to come, and the 
broad Atlantic now lay between him and his native 
land. Now was to come that Great Adventure, which, 
as a joyous youth sans peur he faced with elation, and 
a confidence known only to pure fools. He stayed but 
a day or two in Liverpool, for his immediate objective 
was London. He was at pains to make it a daylight 
ride, for he wished to give his eyes all the treat of 
novelty. 

And what he saw was a finished land—something 
that had ripened through the centuries. This finished 
land impressed him with a sense of the far-away. It 
did not seem to vibrate; and, sub audite, came to him 
a stream of ancient tales. He found quiet, unobtrusive 
charm in the countryside, he noted patches of crops 
arranged with a precision, an inch by inch economy of 


[215] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


space, that gave him a feeling that the people of this 
Island must be crowded, as each small farm was 
pressed tight against its neighbors, and each crop 
pressed tight against the others. ‘This tightness con- 
firmed his impression of a finished land. It was a 
revelation to him, who had come from the middle west 
of America with its vast prairies sparsely settled. He 
noticed, too, the amazing solidity of the roadbed, and 
the smoothness with which the train flew on at high 
speed. He saw, too, that there were no grade cross- 
ings; that everything was immensely solid in contrast 
to the flimsiness with which he was familiar. And the 
country roads were wonderful, so sound, so smooth, 
as they wound their way; and the charming streams 
he crossed; the verdure, the lovely groves, the ham- 
lets, the villages, the many church spires rising from 
masses of green; the rural air everywhere, charmed 
him with the softness, the velvet, the down of age and 
tradition. Surely it was a finished land, beautifully 
finished, sturdy, vigorous, solid, set, and he felt the 
power of this land, this tight-crowded land, and he 
thought as an inference it must be true that in such a 
crowded land its people must be tightly self-conscious 
and self-centered. But he did not as yet clearly dis- 
cern the portrait of this Island crowded on all sides 
by the sea. 

Arriving in London, he thought the roof of Euston 
Station would fall down upon him. It was so solid, 
so oppressively heavy, he was glad to escape to the 
street. In London he spent two weeks, most of the. 
time joyfully. The weather, it appears, was extra 
fine. In this strange world called London, he walked 
many miles every day and examined most carefully 


[ 216 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


everything within reach, and he thrilled to the booming 
of “Big Ben,” the like of which he had never heard. 
It seemed to be an old world sound, a remnant or an 
aftermath of the Age of Romance. The power of 
its stroke almost said to him: “I am that I am!” 

One evening in his wanderings he found himself in 
the Haymarket and saw there shoals of wretches. He 
was rudely shocked, in horror, in pity and dismay. 
When he finally escaped from the many fingers clutch- 
ing at his sleeve, he thought: Is this also London— 
does Big Ben boom in pride for these?—and a veil 
slowly lifted by degrees. And in the shops where he 
went to make his small purchases, the rudeness, the 
brutal rawness of the clerks, or ‘‘clarks,’’ amazed him. 
At the Music Halls, he was equally astonished at the 
brilliance of the demi-monde. London was too much 
for Louis. He lacked the worldly wisdom to grasp its 
immensity, the significance of its teeming, struggling 
population, the cold reserve in certain places. But he 
noted the manifold variety, the surging crowds, the 
dismal hardness of so many faces, and a certain ruth- 
lessness; and everywhere, in the jammed highways, the 
selfish push of those who must live. So he confined 
himself to the pleasanter aspects, such as Hyde Park, 
Rotten Row, and the Thames embankment. He was 
curious at the vast Houses of Parliament, vertical 
everywhere; and St. Paul’s black with soot; and many 
structures in which he sensed, in their visages, the 
solemn weight of age. ‘hey did not appeal to him in 
their historic message so much as in the sense of that 
which is old. This massive oldness made a new sensa- 
tion for him. So passed the days. 

Louis left England with so many intermingling im- 


balsa 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


pressions thrust suddenly upon him, so many seeming 
contradictions and paradoxes, that time was needed for 
the turbid mixture to settle, to clarify, and to reveal a 
dominant idea. 

Thus Louis reached the shores of France much puz- 
zled as to England. 

He had sailed from Dover to Dieppe. 

In the course of the passage, all the transcendental 
curves, known and unknown to mathematics, were re- 
vealed to him by the packet, which distorted and twirled 
the very heavens, in its can-can with the sea. 

As they moved into the little harbor of Dieppe, 
what was left of Louis gazed at the quaint city with 
acceptance and delight. How different from England. 
What a change in physiognomy. How cheerful the 
aspect—a delicate suggestion not so much of age as of 
mediaevalism; he had read about it in many books—a 
surviving fragrance of romance. But on the way 
through Normandy, Louis was equally startled, at the 
rigid spacing of trees, at the dinky chateaux, new-made, 
stuck here and there as though forming the heads of 
pins. All was clean, all was stiff. But the farms and 
the cattle were a revelation, especially the cattle— 

never had he seen such. 

As the train passed through Rouen, twilight was 
under way, and the spire of the Cathedral seemed to 
float in the air as though there were no earth. 

Arrived in Paris after night-fall, Louis saw the 
streets aglow. He boarded a fiacre, and shouted to 
the cocher: 

Hotel Saint Honoré! 


[ 218 ] 


CHAPTER XII. 


Paris 


FTER a brief stay at the Hotel St. Honoré, Louis 
A found permanent quarters on the seventh floor 
of a rooming hotel, at the southeast corner Rue 
Monsieur le Prince and Rue Racine, in the Latin Quar- 
ter. Nearby were the “Boule Miche” toward the east, 
the Odeon, the Luxembourg Palace and its gardens to 
the southwest. From this lofty perch which he always 
reached on the run, two steps at a time, the City of 
Paris spread before him to the north, and on the small 
balcony, reached by casement doors, he would some- 
times sit in the twilight and be caught by the solitary 
boom of the great bell of Notre Dame. 

Early he had discovered that the French of his High 
School, for excellence in which he had taken first prize 
in a matter of course way, was not quite the colloquial 
French he now heard, spoken with exasperating rapid- 
ity and elision. As to the bill of fare, the Menu, at 
the first attempt he perspired awhile in anguish, then 
put his finger on a line at random, and set down the 
result in a special notebook. He must learn current 
French in a hurry. He engaged a teacher to come 
every day at a fixed hour. When on the streets, he 
walked close to the people ahead, to catch every word; 
in this way his ear caught up words, locutions, intona- 
tions, and emphasis; and soon he began to feel he was 
on the way, even though he did not understand a tenth 
of what he heard. 

He early visited. the American Legation, complied 
with requirements, received information and advice, 


[ 219:4 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


was told to buy certain textbooks, and was referred to 
a certain Monsieur Clopet as the very best tutor in 
mathematics. At the Legation he made the startling 
discovery that the Beaux Arts entrance examinations 
were to begin in six weeks; and furthermore, he had 
scanned the Program of Admission, and was startled 
again at the range of subjects he was not up on. Was 
he downhearted? Not a bit. It was a certainty he 
would pass because he must pass. He had come to 
Paris from far-away Chicago with that sole end in 
view; so why argue? He knew it meant six weeks of 
the hardest work he had ever done. He figured on 
eighteen hours a day. He knew he was in physical 
condition. He would allot one hour each day to gym- 
nasium work, and keep on simple diet. What stood 
uppermost in his mind and gave him self-reliance to face 
any task, was his assurance: Had he not been trained 
in discipline and self-discipline by Moses Woolson? 
Had he not been trained and tried by that great teacher 
in the science and the art of thinking, of alertness, of 
close attention and quick action, in economy of time, 
in sharp analysis, in the high values of contemplation? 

He lost no time in calling upon Monsieur Clopet. 
He was greeted in simple gracious words, by a small 
dark man, who, to Louis’s joy, spoke only French. The 
preliminaries over, Monsieur Clopet asked: ‘And 
what are the books you have under your arm?” Louis 
replied: ‘Books I was told at the American legation 
I would need.” ‘Ah, yes, let me see them.” He took 
the books, selected a large work on Descriptive Geom- 
etry, and began to turn the pages. ‘Now observe: 
Here is a problem with five exceptions or special cases; 
here a theorem, three special cases; another nine, and 


[ 220 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


so on and on, a procession of exceptions and special 
cases. I suggest you place the book in the waste basket; 
we shall not need of it here; for here our demonstra- 
tions shall be so broad as to admit of NO EXCEP- 
TION!” 

At these amazing words Louis stood as one whose 
body had turned to hot stone, while his brain was 
raging. Instantly the words had flashed, there arose 
a vision and a fixed resolve; an instantaneous inquiry 
and an instant answer. The inquiry: If this can be 
done in Mathematics, why not in Architecture? The 
instant answer: It can, and it shall be! no one has—I 
will! It may mean a long struggle; longer and harder 
than the tramp through the forest of Brown’s Tract. 
It may be years from now, before I find what I seek, 
but I shall find it, if otherwhere and otherwise, with or 
without guide other than my flair, my will and my 
apprehension. It shall be done! [I shall live for that! 
—no one, no thing, no thousand shall deter me. The 
world of men, of thoughts, of things, shall be mine. 
Firmly I believe that if I can but interpret it, that 
world is filled with evidence. I shall explore that 
world to seek, to find. I shall weigh that world in a 
balance. I shall question it, I shall examine and cross- 
examine, I shall finally interpret—I shall not be with- 
held, I shall prevail! 

During the immense seconds of this eidolon, Louis 
found himself shaking hands with Monsieur Clopet in 
parting, promising to join his class on the morrow. 
This he did. The class consisted of about twenty 
young men, mostly French, a few from other lands, no 
Englanders, no other American. Louis wished an ex- 
clusively French atmosphere—he was beginning feebly 


[ 221 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


to think in French and wished no disturbance of the 
process. He had told his French tutor that he knew 
the grammar by heart and could conjugate all the irre- 
gular verbs; that what he wished, and he wished it 
done in a hurry, was to acquire the language of the 
man on the street first of all, to acquire what fluency 
he might in the short time before him, to increase his 
vocabulary, a hundred new words memorized every 
day. It must be talk, talk, talk, and read, read, read, 
to each other—daily papers, general history in partic- 
ular, read aloud to each other, read and correct, talk 
and correct, and hammer away in the sweat of their 
brows. His tutor could not long stand the pace and 
begged to be excused. Louis got another, wore him 
out. The third one stuck. He saw into Louis’s plan 
and it amused him greatly, so much so that he joined 
in, jovially, and made a play of it. A petit verre 
started him off nicely. He possessed a rare art of con- 
versation, was full of anecdote, personal incident and 
reminiscence, knew his Paris, had the sense of comedy 
to a degree, looked upon life as a huge joke, upon all 
persons as jokes, and upon Louis as such in particular— 
he would:amuse himself with this frantic person. At 
once he spoke to Louis en camarade, vieux copain, as 
one Frenchman to another. He made running com- 
ments on the news of the day, explained all sorts of 
things Louis was beginning to note in Paris life, put 
him in the running. He had a gift of mimicry, would 
imitate the provincial dialects and peasant jargon, with 
fitting tone and gesture, and, taking a given topic or 
incident, would relate it in terms and impersonations 
ranging in series from gamin to Academician. In these 
moods he was simply “killing.” And when Louis told 


[2224 


Tae AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


a story, he would mimic it delightfully. But the man 
knew his French, and: spread out the language before 
Louis in a sort of landscape which awoke imagination. 
At times he would wax eloquent concerning his mother 
tongue, as he revealed its resources and its beauty, its 
clarity, its precision, its fluidity, and he earnestly ad- 
vised Louis that he must without fail go each Sunday 
to the Church of St. Roch, there to hear in the ser- 
mon the marvelous beauty of the language, as uttered 
there by one who, through life-long discipline, had at- 
tained to its perfection of form and vocal melody. 

This tutor man suited Louis; he was wholly human, 
and well versed. Also well built, well under middle 
age, seldom sat for long, but paced the floor, or lolled 
here or there by moments. His voice was suave, his 
manner frank and free. He had an air, was well bred. 
He was either an unconscious or a crafty teacher, a 
rara avis, he knew how to get results. The daily lesson 
lasted one hour, and Louis. daily plowed on, at high 
tension. 

At Monsieur Clopet’s class he was well received by 
the young gentlemen there. He returned their saluta- 
tions and an atmosphere of savoir faire prevailed. All 
were hard put to it to keep up their notes as a lecture 
progressed. Monsieur Clopet was gentle, polished, 
forceful. ‘‘One must work; that is what one is here 
for.’ As a drill master he was a potent driver, as an 
expounder he made good his word to Louis in a method 
and a manner, revealing, inspiriting, as he calmly un- 
folded, step by step, a well reasoned process in his 
demonstrations which were so simple, so inclusive, so 
completely rounded as to preclude exception; and there 
was not a book in sight; but ever in sight was Mon- 


Zacu 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


sieur Clopet, making something teachable out of what 
at first seemed an abstraction in three dimensions. 
Louis was especially pleased at the novelty of saying 
je dis—‘T say’’—at the beginning of a demonstration. 
It humanized matters, brought them home, close up, 
a sort of challenge. How much more intelligent and 
lively to begin: “I say the sum of the angles of any 
triangle equals two right angles” than the formal im- 
personal statement: ‘“The sum of the angles of any 
triangle equals two right angles.” The latter statement 
one may take or leave. The former is a personal as- 
sertion and implies, “I will show you.” In fact, it was 
this “I say” and this “I will show you” that made up 
the charm of Monsieur Clopet’s teaching method. For 
Louis had but little use for what is called “proof.” 
In his secret heart he did not believe that anything 
could be proved, but believed as firmly that many 
things might be shown. From long practice as listener 
and observer, he had reached this conclusion, and as 
time went on, in his studies he became convinced that 
all abstractions were assumptions—that abstract truth 
was a mirage. As Monsieur Clopet’s course covered 
mainly descriptive geometry and the science of arith- 
metic, with plain and solid geometry as incidentals, 
Louis met his bugbear in this very science of arithmetic. 
He seemed to bump his head against invisible walls, 
a blockade which seemed to hold him a prisoner to in- 
ner consciousness, instead of the free open of outward 
consciousness — a working of the intellect detached 
from reality—therefore detached from life; but it was 
an examination requirement, so Louis stuck to the tread- 
mill and learned how, by “rigorous logic,” it might be 
proved that two and two make four. It was not that 


[ 224 ] 


Site aUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


he lacked the sense that the study of numbers had its 
charm, and might exercise a fascination for those who 
had a mathematical career in view. It was against 
what he deemed the impertinence of rigid logic that 
he rebelled, for once we assume an abstraction to be 
real, he thought, we lose our anchorage which is in 
the real. 

At the end of the first half hour Monsieur Clopet 
always called a recess. From his pocket he drew forth 
_ his pouch and his little book of rice papers; so did the 
others. ‘There was sauntering, spectacular smoking and 
conversation. ‘The cigarette finished, work was re- 
sumed. Louis thought this gay, immediately procured 
the findings, and learned to “roll his own.” After 
recess the students were put through their paces at the 
blackboard for the final half-hour. 

For Louis all this was exhilarating. He soon felt he 
was making sure headway. His fellow pupils were 
most amiable, and began to remark upon his improving 
French. Early in the game, however, they had taken 
him in hand regarding his attire, for Louis had made 
his first appearance clad in a flannel suit, a white cap 
and white canvas shoes. ‘They were serious about it. 
‘We would have you know, friend, you are not prop- 
erly dressed. You are a student now, an aspirant for 
the Beaux Arts. Only the working classes wear the 
casquette. Gentlemen wear the chapeau, and only 
sporting people wear such clothes and shoes. You shall 
dress like a student and be one of us.’’ As soon as it 
could be done, Louis appeared in tall silk hat, an in- 
fant beard, long tail coat, and trousers of dark ma- 
terial, polished shoes, kid gloves, and jaunty cane. 
Louis felt self-conscious, but he was met with so vol- 


deo 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


uble a chorus of approval that he changed his tone, 
studied carefully the student manner so as to be one 
of them—they were such good fellows. 

Swiftly fled the days; thus moved the work; nightly 
Louis sat in his room on the seventh, at his small desk, 
a candle at each side, black coffee and wet towel as 
aids. He codified the Clopet notes, arranged his French 
vocabulary, read history by the hour, for he knew this 
latter would be highly important; and so it went day 
and night—work, work, work. About midway in the 
game Louis’s brain seemed to be overcome by a fog. 
Everything was blurred as in a mist, his memory lost 
its grip. His knowledge of athletics told him he had 
overtrained and run stale. A three days’ change of 
scene and complete diversion put him right; memory 
returned, the mist lifted; after that, no trouble. 

The great day of the Examinations was now near at 
hand. Louis’s French tutor had cautioned him to be 
careful not to use slang when addressing the professors; 
and Monsieur Clopet had said in open class, “I don’t 
know as to the rest of you, but there is one among you 
who will pass brilliantly 1 in his mathematics, and he is 
an American.”’ 

So, several days before the examinations, which were 
to begin early in October, Louis stopped all work, 
relaxed completely, and, in a state of confidence amused 
himself with the sights and sounds of Paris, and enjoyed 
a few long sleeps. He wandered here and there and 
everywhere, immensely amused and satisfied. Paris 
seemed made for him. All was really new to him, but 
did not seem strange or alien as had England. The 
people seemed rather like his own people of the Mid- 
dle West; more cultured, more polite, more refined, to 


[ 226 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


be sure, but withal, a certain temperamental likeness 
he believed to exist between raw Chicago and finished 
Paris. He believed he had observed a similar affinity 
between Boston and London. ‘To Louis’s view the 
barrier of language was most unfortunate, for the two 
peoples at large appeared to possess the same light- 
hearted spirit of adventure. Paris, though filled with 
historic monuments did not seem old; it gave rather 
an impress of ever self-renewing youth and its people 
seemed light hearted. 

Wherever he went he found the city well ordered . 
and cleanly, with architectural monuments everywhere; 
and in the parks and gardens he went through the old 
experience of surprise that the children could speak 
French so well. In the Luxembourg Gardens he 
watched them in groups with their nurses and peram- 
bulators and toys, and to him the children were like 
flowers and the nurses stately flowers, and the babble 
and child laughter and twittering made delicate and 
merry music. Never had he seen such child-happiness, 
such utter joy in living; and he felt convinced this must 
be the child-key to France. Window-shopping also 
was his keen delight as he traversed the boulevards 
and the Rue de la Paix. He even ventured to enter, 
and was not met with scowls—nor did he hear a word 
equivalent to the “damned Yankees.’’ The crowds 
upon the boulevards were varied, interesting and cos- 
mopolite. Yes, there was an atmosphere; this atmo- 
sphere was Paris; Paris was to be his home; its air 
of hospitality, of world-welcomer and host, found in 
him a ready and a heartfelt response. 

In the French language Louis had by now acquired 
a very fair degree of ease, and a vocabulary sufficiently 


[ 227 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEZ 


covering the colloquial and the literary for his present 
purpose. His accent was good and on the way to be- 
coming Parisian. ‘Thus, prepared, with all his hard, 
gruelling work back of him, he felt at ease, but with a 
due sense of the close call he had had—six weeks! Had 
he been trained by any teacher other than Moses Wool- 
son, in his high school days, and had he not all his life 
been in fine physical condition—which means no nerves 
—it is doubtful if he could have stood the strain of 
preparation. 

The examinations were to be, severally, written, 
drawn, and oral. ‘They were to cover a period of 
three weeks. The number of candidates for admis- 
sion was large, covering all departments. 

The great trial was now under way. The free hand 
drawing, the mechanical drawing, and an esquisse en 
loge of a simple architectural project, went smoothly 
enough for Louis; perhaps with some difficulty for 
others. ‘The real test for him would lie in the oral 
examinations, which were conducted in little amphi- 
theatres, a professor presiding, and all aspirants free 
to come and go, as they did in a steady stream. Louis 
himself had been one of these wanderers awaiting his 
turn. ‘The candidate under fire thus was by no means 
lonely; indeed, he deeply wished to be alone with his 
inquisitor. 

Came Louis’s turn for mathematics. For audience 
he had some twenty strange faces, all rather scared. 
The examining professor, elderly and of quiet poise, 
received him most courteously as a stranger in the land, 
a guest of France, and an aspirant to the Beaux Arts; 
that it was a pleasure to welcome him, that he need not 
feel in the least embarrassed, that the inquisition would 


[ 228 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


proceed at a moderate pace, and that Louis was free 
to solve any problem in any way he liked, the objective 
being solely to discover the extent of his understand- 
ing, not of his memory. ‘Then the examining professor 
settled to the work. For over an hour—Lord knows 
how long it was—he put Louis through a steady gruel- 
ling—always kindly, however—such as Louis had 
never known, never dreamed of, never believed could 
be so. In the midst of it he recalled Monsieur Clopet’s 
“T don’t know about the rest of you” and he came of 
a sudden into his true stride, which he held to the end. 
For, after a heart-breaking crisis, he suddenly found 
himself actually thinking in terms of mathematics, and, 
accordingly, lost all fear, relaxed and let his mind go 
free. From beginning to end he did not make a fluke. 
At the close, the examining professor, who had become 
quite interested when he found he could increase the 
difficulties, pressed Louis’s hand and said: “I felicitate 
you, Monsieur Sullivan: you have the mathematical 
imagination which is rather rare. I wish you well.” 
Now, of all things Louis might have said he did not 
possess, the mathematical imagination would head the 
list in a large way. He knew, in a small way, he had 
been charmed in his high school by the novelties of 
the ideas set forth in geometry and algebra. But there 
they were simply discipline, founded categorically on 
the books. And in the books was no imagination that 
he could discern. Perhaps, after all, it was the free- 
dom of Monsieur Clopet’s classroom and Louis’s en- 
thusiasm at each beautiful demonstration, and the many 
pointed questions he asked of Monsieur Clopet, that 
had led the latter to speak as he did concerning ‘“‘an 
American.” However this may be, Louis found the 


[ 229 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


open world of mathematics; that it was possible to think 
in such terms as it was possible to think in French— 
for doing this latter, also, was an act of imagination. 
And now from the secret places of this new world 
there came a Siren call which perturbed Louis sadly for 
many years. Toward this new world Louis turned 
many a wistful thought thereafter: It was a land of 
Romance. 

Now came the questioning in History, and Louis 
was equally startled at the method. He was well pre- 
pared according to the books, which he had visualized 
into a moving picture, but he was not prepared for the 
shock. 

Three questions only, were asked—the replies coy- 
ered one hour and a half of constant talking. Louis 
had supposed that questions and answers would be 
categorical, after the manner of procedure he had been 
taught in America, where, to epitomize, it might be 
said the chief interest centered around the exact date 
of the discovery of America. Now Louis felt the earth 
leave him, as the first question came: “‘Monsieur, will 
you be kind enough to tell me the story of the Hebrew 
People?’ Then the earth came back, but the question 
remained immense. Still the situation was not alto- 
gether infelicitous, for Louis had read considerably 
in the Bible, and had heard far more than he had 
read—in spite of the fact that John Edelman had 
cautioned him that no oné should read the Bible before 
the age of mental maturity, which he had placed at 
forty, and was reserving that treat for himself. So 
Louis began safely with the desert tribes, the sojourn 
in Egypt, the wandering in the desert, carrying the 
story down to the destruction of Jerusalem, and the 


[ 230 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


captivity. He also sketched the patriarchal age, the 
prophets in captivity, the final triumph of ritual over 
inspiration and righteousness. The charm of this ex- 
amination lay in the fact that Louis was encouraged 
by the examining professor to give a pictorial and 
rather dramatic recital, and the professor’s frequent 
questioning concerning what Louis had said and as to 
why he thought thus or so. He, for instance, asked 
Louis what had impressed him most vividly in the 
story of the Jews, and Louis said: ‘The emergence and 
vivid personality of Jehovah, their God. 

The next question now followed: “I would like an 
account of the ten emperors of Rome.”’ Another half- 
hour of talk as Louis covered the ground, from the 
bookish point of view, and made a few remarks on his 
own account, which led the professor to say: ‘You do 
not seem to be in sympathy with Roman civilization.” 
“No,” said Louis, “I feel out of touch with a civiliza- 
tion whose glory was based on force.”’ 

Then came the third question: “Monsieur, I see you 
have a certain faculty, a bit crude as yet, of making 
word pictures, of discerning something real beneath the 
glamour of the surface, which it is the particular busi- 
ness of the true historian to uncover. Now, therefore, 
as this is to be the last question, do your best and give 
me an intimate account of the times of Francis First.” 
Louis did this with joy. On account of Leonardo’s 
part in it, he had studied the period with especial care 
and devotion. He had seemed to live in this time, and 
with its people, its manners, its customs, its thoughts, 
it stood forth for him as a very present picture of the 
past. 

At the close the examining professor smiled. He 


BeAI 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ANWPEZ 


said: ‘“The object of these examinations is not to ascer- 
tain an array of facts devoid of shaping context, but to 
discern the degree of intelligence possessed by the candi- 
date; to ascertain his capacity for interpretation, and 
if he possess, to any perceptible degree, the faculty of 
constructive imagination—without which the pursuit of 
history is merely so much wasted time. I am agreeably 
surprised at times to find this latter quality present, 
and in you it is vivid, amazing and rash. To be sure 
you are not expected to be profound in historic knowl- 
edge, but you have shown me, in your faithful way, 
that instinctively, you know how to go about it, so I 
say: Continue, continue. After some years you will 
begin to understand a little, and as you mature, you 
may perhaps feel inclined to turn the teachings of 
history upside down. I can now do no less for your 
gratification and as well my own, than to give you the 
highest rating, and to wish you happiness. I shall 
doubtless have been long gone hence before your studies 
shall have matured into a valuable and personal idea; 
a contribution to the knowledge of mankind, but 
courage, courage,—and Adieu!” 

Thus Louis, in Paris, spent an hour and a half an- 
swering three history questions. At home he would 
have been asked perhaps five times as many questions, 
all categorical in nature, and would have been through 
with them in a half an hour. It was this immense 
difference in matter and manner, especially as applied 
to mathematics and history, that opened Louis’s eyes 
to the quality and reach of French thought; to its 
richness, its firmness, its solidity, and above all, the 
severity of its discipline beneath so smooth a surface. 

Examinations over, Louis received his card of ad- 


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THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


mission to the school, good until the age of thirty. 
Then he made his entrée into the atelier of Monsieur 
Emil Vaudremer, practicing architect. He much pre- 
ferred an atelier libre—or free—independent—to the 
official ateliers of the Ecole. There were a number of 
such ateliers, under the care of architects of distinction, 
men who had been winners of the Grand Prix de Rome, 
—veritable Polar Star of the Ecole. As Eugene 
Letang had come from the Atelier Vaudremer, it 
seemed but natural that Louis should feel at home 
there. 

The Director of the Ecole gave out the program of 
a three-months projet; the twenty-four-hour sketches 
were made en loge, and filed as briefs; whereupon, to 
Louis’s surprise, everybody vanished. So Louis be- 
thought him to vanish. 

During his preparatory work he had discovered 
three small volumes by Hippolyte Taine devoted to the 
Philosophy of Art in Greece, in Italy, and in the Neth- 
erlands. From these works he derived three strong 
impressions, novel shocks: First, that there existed 
such thing as a Philosophy of Art; second, that accord- 
ing to M. Taine’s philosophy the art of a people is a 
reflex or direct expression of the life of that people; 
third, that one must become well acquainted with that 
life in order to see into the art. All this was new 
and shining. He knew it was true of Boston and 
Chicago. In the volume on Italy, however, occurred 
a statement which struck Louis as of most sinister im. 
port for him: It alarmed him. It was to this effect: 
That, concerning the work of Michael Angelo in the 
Sistine Chapel, the Last Judgment was obviously done 
on momentum, as compared with the vigor of the ceil- 


rog3q 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


ing. Now Louis had never trusted the care of his eye- 
sight to anyone, nor did he now propose to entrust it 
in M. Taine’s keeping. He was averse to taking things 
on say-so. It was his pride that he could see. But, 
could his eye detect so subtle a change in the work of 
a great artist as was implicated in the word momentum 
and which M. Taine had said was obvious? He had 
many sinkings at the heart because of this. He must 
go to Rome, to verify; for the worth of his whole 
scheme seemed to rest in this delicate balance. It was 
vital. There must be no doubt. He must, beyond 
question, be sure of the quality of his eyesight. To 
Rome he went, quaking but courageous. 

The Sistine Chapel! One steady sweep of the eye! 
It was easy—oh, so easy! So self-evident! Thus a 
cumulating agony ended forever in a supreme moment 
of relief; and Louis knew, once and for all, that he 
could see anything that eye could see. He would not 
have used the word momentum—an academic word— 
he would have called it the work of a man powerful 
even in old age. Louis spent three days in Rome—two 
of them in the Sistine—alone there, almost all the time. 
Here he communed in the silence with a Super-Man. 
Here he felt and saw a great Free Spirit. Here he 
was filled with the awe that stills. Here he came face 
to face with his first great Adventurer. ‘The first 
mighty man of Courage. The first man with a Great 
Voice. The first whose speech was Elemental. The 
first whose will would not be denied. The first to cry 
YEA! in thunder tones. The first mighty Craftsman. 
The man, the man of super-power, the glorified man, 
of whom he had dreamed in his childhood, of whom 
he prophesied in his childhood, as he watched his big, 


[ 234 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


strong men build stone walls, hew down trees, drive 
huge horses—his mighty men, his heroes, his demi- 
gods; a powerful presentiment which he had seen and 
felt in the glory of the sunrise; which he had heard 
in the voice of spring; and which, personified through 
the haze of most mystical romantic trances, he believed 
in, he had faith in—that faith which is far removed 
from fancy, that faith which is near its source and 
secure. 

Now was he in that veritable dreamed-of Presence. 
Here was that great and glorious personality. Here 
was power as he had seen it in the mountains, here was 
power as he had seen it in the prairies, in the open sky, 
in the great lake stretching like a floor toward the 
horizon, here was the power of the forest primeval. | 
Here was the power of the open—of the free spirit of 
man striding abroad in the open. Here was the living 
presence of a man who had done things in the benef- 
cence of power. And Louis gazed long and long, as 
one enthralled. And with his own eyes, with his own 
responses, he discerned more and more. ‘There seemed 
to come forth from this great work a mystery; he 
began to see into it, and to discern the workings of a 
soul within. From beneath the surface significance 
there emerged that which is timeless, that which is 
deathless, that which in its immensity of duration, its 
fecundity, its everpresent urge, we call LIFE. And 
in this great outpouring which encompassed him, he 
saw the Dreamer at his work. For no hand, unaided, 
could do this; no intellect unaided could do this; Im- 
agination alone could do this; and Imagination, looked 
into, revealed itself as uncompromising faith in Life, 
as faith in man, and especial faith in his wondrous 


[ 235 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 42g 


powers. He saw that Imagination passes beyond rea- 
son and is a consummated act of Instinct—the primal 
power of Life at work. Thus Louis pondered as he 
viewed o’er and o’er the Persian Sibyl. Forty-nine 
years have come and gone since a youth of eighteen 
thought these thoughts without words; alone in the 
Sistine. 


“There was a Child went forth every day.” 


2 * * 


Louis saw Florence and does not know how he came 
to break the golden chains that bound him there, a too 
willing captive. It needed full six weeks to part a net 
that seemed but of gossamer; or was it the fragrance 
of Lotus Land? 

And the rocky coast of the Riviera, alive with beauty 
and with color implanted by the hand of man near the 
water's edge, on the crags which came down from the 
foot of the mountains to indent the sea—precious spots 
in memory’s hold. And the solid blue sea, with sky as 
solid blue—ineftable blue—wondrous blue—Mediter- 
ranean and Riviera—sea and mountain range, a reve- 
lation and a piercing joy—how could such things be? - 
Then on to Nice, to Paris—and hard work again. 

Louis was keyed for every form of anticipated effort; 
keen and anxious to observe, to analyse, to compare; to 
start on the second phase of his program, the purport 
of which was to ascertain what the Great School had 
to give, what Monsieur Vaudremer had to give, and 
to get close to the glowing heart of French Culture, 
as nearly as he might. It was his purpose to Jive, in 
fact; to absorb, to contemplate. He felt he had no 


[ 236 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


time to lose, that he must press on. Insatiable curiosity 
urged him. 

He went back to his old quarters on the seventh, 
with its northward spreading view. Nightly he sat 
long at his desk, a candle at each side, and, pondering 
his books of history slowly he persuaded the peoples of 
the past to come forward to meet him until they 
seemed of his own day, and he of theirs, in a dramatic 
moving present, a spectacle, a processional of the races 
and the nations, whose separate deeds seemed to flow 
from their separate thoughts, and whose thoughts and 
deeds seemed, as he himself progressed, toward them, 
to coalesce into a mass movement of mankind, carrying 
the burden of a single thought. What was that 
thought? He did not know. He could not see. But 
he knew it was there, he could feel it in the atmospheric 
depths of the centuries, a single ever-present thought, 
which since the beginning had been the Lodestar of 
the Man of the past. Thus became vaguely outlined 
an image of Man as a vast personality, within which 
were gathered all the powers, all the thoughts of the 
races, all vicissitudes of the civilizations—a presence 
which seemed to move steadily, silently, across the 
depths, onward into the modern day, indistinct but real, 
following the turn of each leaf of the Calendar. This 
strange presence he had evoked Louis could not banish, 
it seemed to be immense and to stir immediately behind 
the veil of appearances. He would some day locate 
this phantasm, he said, and meet it as real; for in it, he 
said, was that secret men called truth. Thus history 
became for Louis a moving drama, and he sole spec- 
tator. And it was in this sense that he studied the 
history of architecture—not mreely as a fixation here 


[ 237 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


and there in time and place, but as a continuous out- 
pouring never to end, from the infinite fertility of 
man’s imagination, evoked by his changing needs. 
These were hours of deepest contemplation, the begin- 
ning of his self-education. 


*K K *K 


The Atelier Vaudremer gave on a_ courtyard, 
reached by a passageway leading from the Rue de Bac, 
about a mile west of where Louis lived. It was at 
the ground level, a rough affair, like a carpenter’s shop, 
large enough to accommodate about twenty young 
rufians. Here it was the work was done amid a cross 
fire of insults, and it was also here that Monsieur Emil 
Vaudremer came to make his “‘criticisms.”’ He was 
one of the dark Frenchmen, of medium size, who car- 
ried a fine air of native distinction; a man toward whom 
one’s heart instantly went out in respectful esteem bor- 
dering on pride and aftection. His personality was 
calm, deliberate yet magnetic, a sustained, quiet dignity 
bespeaking a finished product. His “criticisms” were, 
therefore, just what one might expect them to be, clear, 
clean-cut, constructive, and personal to each student, 
in each case, with that peculiar sympathy with the 
young which comes from remembrance of one’s own 
youth. Always, however, he was disciplinarian, and 
one felt the steady pressure. Louis thought the exigent 
condition that one hold to the original sketch in its 
essentials, to be discipline, of an inspired sort, in that 
it held one firmly to a thesis. 

Monsieur Vaudremer—otherwise Le Patron, had to 
his credit as executed works, the Church of the Sacred 
Heart, of Mont Rouge, and the Prison Mazzas. He 


[ 238 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


was considered, therefore, a rising and highly promis- 
ing young member of his profession—he was forty-five. 
This condition may be better understood when it is 
made known that winners of the Grand Prix are usually 
close under thirty. 

Louis entered heart and soul into the atelier life, 
with all its tumult and serious work, and its curious 
exacting etiquette at the times of arrival and departure. 
He now spoke French well enough to be treated en 
camarade, and the package of thieves’ slang, which he 
carried in his sleeve and sprinkled on occasions, raised 
his standing to one of esteem, to such extent that he 
no longer was required to carry wood for the stove or 
clean the drawing boards. ‘The intimate life of the 
atelier with its free commingling of the younger and 
the older students seemed to Louis invaluable in its 
human aspects, so much so that he became rather more 
absorbed in the work of others than in his own, for he 
always felt himself to be in the position of observer. 
The Atelier, the School, came to be for him but part of 
a larger world called Paris, and Paris but a part of a 
larger world called France, and France but a part of 
a larger world called Europe, all in contradistinction to 
his native land; the continuously finished as against the 
raw or decadent. The sense of stable motion he noted 
everywhere. As time went on it became clearer and 
clearer to him what the power of culture meant. He 
began to realize that Paris was not of a day, but of 
busy and sad centuries. He studied carefully all its 
monuments and each seemed to speak to him of its 
own time. He attended unforgettable midnight masses 
at Notre Dame; he spent many hours in the museums; 
he followed closely the exhibits at the School, espe- 


[239 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF Zire 


cially the exhibits of the second or higher class. He 
familiarized himself thoroughly with the theory of the 
School, which, in his mind, settled down to a theory 
of plan, yielding results of extraordinary brilliancy, but 
which, after all, was not the reality he sought, but an 
abstraction, a method, a state of mind, that was local 
and specific; not universal. Intellectual and esthetic, 
it beautifully set forth a sense of order, of function, 
of highly skilled manipulation. Yet there was for him 
a fatal residuum of artificiality, which gave him a secret 
sense of misery where he wished but too tenderly to 
be happy. And there came the hovering conviction 
that this Great School, in its perfect flower of tech- 
nique, lacked the profound animus of a primal inspira- 
tion. He felt that beneath the law of the School lay 
a law which it ignored unsuspectingly or with fixed 
intention—the law he had seen set forth in the stillness 
of the Sistine, which he saw everywhere in the open of 
life. Thus crept over him the certitude that the book 
was about to close; that he was becoming solitary in 
his thoughts and heart-hungry, that he must go his way 
alone, that the Paris of his delight must and should 
remain the dream of his delight, that the pang of in- 
evitable parting was at hand. 


[ 240 | 


CHAPTER XIII 


The Garden City 
OE pre: was a time a city some three hundred 


thousand strong stood beside the shore of a great 

and very wonderful lake with a wonderful hori- 
zon and wonderful daily moods. Above the rim of its 
horizon rose sun and moon in their times, the one 
spreading o’er its surface a glory of rubies; its com- 
panion, at the full, an entrancing sheen of mottled sil- 
ver. At other times far to the west in the after-glow 
of sunset the delicate bright crescent poised in farewell 
slowly dimmed and passed from sight. Around this 
city, in ever-extending areas, in fancied semi-circles, lay 
a beauteous prairie, born companion of the lake; while 
within this prairie, at distances of some seven to twelve 
miles from the center of the Garden City, were dotted 
villages, forming also an open-spaced semi-circle, for 
each village nestled in the spacious prairie, and within 
its Own companionable tree growth. To the north 
and west of the city there grew in abundance lofty elms 
and oaks; to the south the section-line dirt roads were 
double rowed with huge willows all swayed toward the 
northeast as the summer winds year by year had set 
them when sap was flowing strong; while scattered 
through this tract were ancient cottonwoods rising 
singly or in groups, in their immense and venerable 
strength. Further to the south, where the soil becomes 
sandy, there appeared fantastic dwarf pines and scrub 
oaks, while at the Lake Shore, neighboring them, 
stretched a mile or more of heavy oak groves that 


pratled 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


might be called a forest. Within it were winding trails; 
within it one seemed lost to the world. 

The city itself was more than a large village—it was 
a village grown robust with an impelling purpose. In 
and near its central business district, residences held 
their own, and churches sent up their spires on Court 
House Square. There were few tramways. MHorse- 
and-buggy was the unit; and on the Grand Boulevard 
fine victorias, blooded high-steppers noisily caparisoned 
in shining brass, liveried driver and footman, were 
daily on view to the populace—wealth was growing 
breathlessly. ‘he business section passed insensibly in- 
to the residential, then began tree growth and gardens 
—the city bloomed in its season. In winter was the old 
time animation which came with heavy, lasting snows, 
with cutters, jangling bells, and horses of all shades 
and grades, and the added confusion of racing; for 
everybody who was anybody owned at least one horse. 

And then again came equinoctial spring; crocuses ap- 
peared; trees, each after its kind, put forth furtive 
leaves; for “April Showers” all too often were but 
chilling northeast rains. Indeed there was no Spring— 
rather a wave-motion of subsiding winter and protest- 
ing summer. But in June the Garden City had come 
again into its own. From a distance one saw many a 
steeple, rising from the green, as landmarks, and in 
the distances the gray bulk of grain elevators. 

The Garden City was triparted by a river with two 
branches; thus it had its three back yards of urgent 
commerce, where no gardens grew; and as well, its 
three shanty-towns. 

On occasion, when a spell of hard weather had held 
the lumber fleet in port, one on watch might see the 


[ 242 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


schooners pour in a stream from the river mouth, 
spread their wings, and in a great and beautiful flock. 
gleam in the sunlight as they moved with favoring wind, 
fan-like towards Muskegon and the northern ports. 

The summer was dry. During September the land 
winds blew hot and steadily. 

The legend has it that a small flame, in shanty town, 
destroyed the Garden City in two awful nights and 
days. The high winds did their carrier’s work. The 
Garden City vanished. With it vanished the living 
story, it had told in pride, of how it came to be. 
Another story now began—the story of a proud people 
and their power to create—a people whose motto was 
“T will”—whose dream was commercial empire. They 
undertook to do what they willed and what they 
dreamed. In the midst of the epic of their striving, 
they were benumbed by the blow of a great financial 
panic, and when Louis returned from Paris the effect 
of this blow had not wholly passed—though the time 
was nearing. ‘The building industry was flat. Finding 
thus no immediate use for his new-fangled imported 
education, and irking at the prospect of idleness, he 
bethought him to see what others might be doing in 
their lines, and at the same time get the lay of the land, 
something he had not found time to do during his first 
visit. Daily he made his twenty miles or more in the 
course of a systematic reconnaisance on foot. When 
this adventure had come to its end, he knew every nook 
and corner of the city and its environs, and had dis- 
covered undisturbed all that had formed the prairie 
setting of the living Garden City, and all that had 
remained undestroyed. 

Curiosity seemed to be Louis’s ruling passion; always 


[ 243 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


he was seeking, finding something new, always looking 
for surprise sensations, always welcoming that which 
was fresh and gave joy to the sight. He had a skill 
in deriving joyful thoughts from close observation of 
what is often called the Commonplace. To him there 
was nothing commonplace—everything had something 
to say. Everything suggested it be listened to and in- 
terpreted. He had followed the branches of the 
Chicago River, had located the lovely forest-bordered 
River Des Plaines, and the old-time historic portage. 
Had read Parkman’s vivid narrative of La Salle and 
the great Northwest, and his wonder stories of Mar- 
quette and Joliet, and he shared in mind the hardships 
of these great pioneers. Thus he came to know the 
why and wherefore of the City; and again he said: 
This is the Place for me! ‘This remnant scene of ruin 
is a prophecy! 

In a while the pulse of industry began the slow 
feeble beat of revival, and the interrupted story of 
imagination and will, again renewed its deep refrain in 
arousing energy. The Garden City had vanished with 
its living story. ‘That tale could not be twice told; 
that presence could not be recalled. It had gone for- 
ever with the flames. Hence a new story must be told. 
Naught else than a new story could be told. Not 
again would the city be the same. It could not be the 
same—men could not now be what they were. It was 
the approach of this new story that excited Louis; he 
would bide his time. He worked briefly now, at inter- 
vals, in the office of this or that-architect, until he had 
nearly covered the field. These men were mostly of 
the elder generation, whose venerable clients clung to 
them for Auld Lang Syne. They were men of homely 


[ 244 ] 


Poe aU PTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


make-up, homely ways. Louis found them very hu- 
man, and enjoyed their shop-talk, which was that of the 
graduate carpenter. He did not demur because they 
were not diplémes of the Beaux Arts. He preferred 
them as they were; much of their curious wisdom stuck 
to him. They were men of their lingering day. To 
them Louis was a marvel of speed. Indeed one of the 
younger of them, who laughed like a goat, remarked 
to his partner: ‘“That Irish-man has ideas!” 

He was a caustic joker and a man of brains, this 
same Frederick Baumann. Educated in Germany to 
the point of cynicism, he was master of one idea which 
he embodied in a pamphlet entitled ““A Theory of Iso- 
lated Pier Foundations,” published in 1873. The logic 
of this essay was so coherent, its common sense so 
sound, that its simple idea has served as the basis of 
standard practice continuously since its day. All honor 
therefore to Frederick Baumann, man of brains, ex- 
ploiter of a new idea, which he made up out of his head. 
His vigorous years reached on to ninety-five, and as 
each one of them passed him by in defile, the world 
and its people seemed to his sharp, mirthful eye, to grow 
more and more ridiculous—a conviction that gave him 
much comfort as his vertebrae began to curve. Louis 
met him frequently of evenings, at the gymnasium, and 
liked to talk to him to get his point of view, which he 
found to be not bitter, but Mephistophelian. He was 
most illuminating, bare of delusion, and as time went 
on Louis came to regard him as a goat-laughing teller 
of truths out of school—but he, Louis, did not forget. 

Reliable text books were few in those days. Due to 
this fact Louis made Trautwine’s ‘“‘Engineers’ Pocket 
Book”’ his Bible, and spent long hours with it. The 


[ 245 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


engineering journals kept close track of actual current 
doings, and thus Louis found himself drifting towards 
the engineering point of view, or state of mind, as he 
began to discern that the engineers were the only men 
who could face a problem squarely; who knew a prob- 
lem when they saw it. Their minds were trained to 
deal with real things, as far as they knew them, as far 
as they could ascertain them, while the architectural 
mind lacked this directness, this simplicity, this single- 
ness of purpose—it had no standard of reference, no 
bench-mark one might say. For he discerned that in 
truth the science of engineering is a science of reaction, 
while the science of architectural design—were such a 
science to be presupposed—must be a science of action. 
Thus Louis arranged in his mind the reciprocal values 
of the primary engineering and the primary architec- 
tural thought, and noted the curious antagonism exist- 
ing between those who professed them. ‘The trouble 
as he saw it was this: That the architect could not or 
would not understand the real working of the engineer- 
ing mind because it was hidden in deadly literal atti- 
tude and results, because of the horrors it had brought 
forth as misbegotten stigmata; while the engineer re 
garded the architect as a frivolous person of small rule- 
of-thumb consequence. And both were largely right; 
both professions contained small and large minds— 
mostly small or medium. Nevertheless they were all 
human beings, and therefore all ridiculous in the 
Mephistophelian sense of Frederick Baumann. 
About this time two great engineering works were 
under way. One, the triple arch bridge to cross the 
Mississippi at St. Louis, Capt. Eades, chief engineer; 
the other, the great cantilever bridge which was to cross 


[ 246 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


the Chasm of the Kentucky River, C. Shaler Smith, 
chief engineer, destined for the use of the Cincinnati 
Southern Railroad. In these two growing structures 
Louis’s soul became immersed. In them he lived. 
Were they not his bridges? Surely they were his 
bridges. In the pages of the Railway Gazette he saw 
them born, he watched them grow. Week by week he 
grew with them. Here was Romance, here again was 
man, the great adventurer, daring to think, daring to 
have faith, daring to do. Here again was to be set 
forth to view man in his power to create beneficently. 
Here were two ideas widely differing in kind. Each 
was emerging from a brain, each was to find realiza- 
tion. One bridge was to cross a great river, to form 
the portal of a great city, to be sensational and architec- 
tonic. [he other was to take form in the wilderness, 
and abide there; a work of science without concession. 
Louis followed every detail of design, every measure- 
ment; every operation as the two works progressed 
from the sinking of the caissons in the bed of the Mis- 
sissippi, and the start in the wild of the initial canti- 
levers from the face of the cliff. He followed each, 
with the intensity of personal identification, to the 
finale of each. Every difficulty encountered he felt to 
be his own; every expedient, every device, he shared 
in. The chief engineers became his heroes; they 
loomed above other men. The positive quality of 
their minds agreed with the aggressive quality of his 
own. In childhood his idols had been the big strong 
men who did things. Later on he had begun to feel 
the greater power of men who could think things; later 
the expansive power of men who could imagine things; 
and at last he began to recognize as dominant, the will 


[ 247 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


of the Creative Dreamer: he who possessed the power 
of vision needed to harness Imagination, to harness the 
intellect, to make science do his will, to make the emo- 
tions serve him—for without emotion nothing. 

This steadfast belief in the power of man was an 
unalloyed childhood instinct, an intuition and a child- 
hood faith which never for a day forsook him, but 
grew stronger, like an indwelling demon. As day by 
day passed on, he saw power grow before his eyes, as 
each unsuspected and new world arose and opened to 
his wonder eyes; he saw power intensify and expand; 
and ever grew his wonder at what men could do. He 
came in a manner to worship man as a being, a presence 
containing wondrous powers, mysterious hidden pow- 
ers, powers so varied as to surprise and bewilder him. 
So that Man, the mysterious, became for him a sort of 
symbol of that which was deepest, most active in his 
heart. As months passed and the years went by, as 
world after world unfolded before him and merged 
within the larger world, and veil after veil lifted, and 
illusion after illusion vanished, and the light grew ever 
steadier, Louis saw power everywhere; and as he grew 
on through his boyhood, and through the passage to 
manhood, and to manhood itself, he began to see the 
powers of nature and the powers of man coalesce in 
his vision into an IDEA of power. Then and only then 
he became aware that this idea was a new idea,—a 
complete reversal and inversion of the commonly ac- 
cepted intellectual and theological concept of the Na- 
ture of man. 

That IDEA which had its mystical beginning in so: 
small a thing as a child’s heart, grew and nurtured 
itself upon that child’s varied consistently continuing 


[ 248 ] 


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and metamorphosing experiences in time and place, as 
has been most solicitously laid bare to view in detail, in 
the course of this recital. For it needs a long long 
time, and a rich soil of life-experience, to enable a 
simple, single idea to grow to maturity and solid 
strength. A French proverb has it that ‘Time will 
not consecrate that in which it has been ignored,” while 
the deep insight of Whitman is set forth in the line, 
‘‘Nature neither hastens nor delays.” 

Louis’s interest in engineering as such, and in the 
two bridges in particular, so captivated his imagination, 
that he briefly dreamed to be a great bridge engineer. 
The idea of spanning a void appealed to him as master- 
ful in thought and deed. For he had begun to discern 
that among men of the past and of his day, there were 
those who were masters of ideas, and of courage, and 
that they stood forth solitary, each in a world of his 
own. But the practical effect of the bridges was to 
turn Louis’s mind from the immediate science of en- 
gineering toward science in general, and he set forth, 
with a new relish, upon a course of reading covering 
Spencer, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, and the Germans, 
and found a new, an enormous world opening before 
him, a world whose boundaries seemed destined to be 
limitless in scope, in content, in diversity. This course 
of reading was not completed in a month, or a year, 
or in many years; it still remains on the move. | 

What Louis noted as uppermost in the scientific 
mind, was its honest search for stability in truth. 
Hitherto he had regarded his mathematics as an art; 
he had not followed far enough to see it as a science. 
Indeed he had hitherto regarded every constructive hu- 
man effort as an art, and to this view he had been held 


[ 249 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


through the consistent unfolding of the Idea. Inevi- 
tably this view was to return in time; through the chan- 
nels of science itself. For that which at once impressed 
Louis as new to him and vital, was what was known 

s “The Scientific Method.’ He saw in it a power of 
solution he long had fruitlessly been seeking. His key 
to an outlook took shape in the scientific method of 
approach to that which lay behind appearances; a 
relentless method whereby to arrive at the truth by 
tireless pursuit. He now had in his hands the instru- 
ment he wanted. He must learn to use it with a crafts- 
man’s skill. For the scientific method was based on 
exact observation from which, by the inductive system 
of reasoning, an inference was drawn, an hypothesis 
framed, to be held tentatively in “suspended judgment”’ 
until the gathering of further data might raise it to the 
dignity of a theory, which theory, if it could stand up 
under further rigorous testing, would slowly pass into 
that domain of ordered and accepted knowledge we 
fondly believe to be Truth. Yet science, he foresaw, 
could not go either fast or far were it not for Imagina- 
tion’s glowing light and warmth. By nature it is rigid 
and prosaic—and Louis early noted that the free spirits 
within its field were men of vision—masters of imagina- 
tion, men of courage, great adventurers—men of one 
big, dominant idea. 

* x * 

In the course of Louis’s daily working life, condi- 
tions were steadily improving. His engagements in 
offices grew longer, he began to prosper. The quality 
of work was improving. He had passed the day of his 
majority, and was now looking out for himself. His 
success in this regard made him proud. He was a 


[ 250 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


man now, and he knew it. He knew he was equipped 
to hold his own in the world. He had made a repu- 
tation as a worker, and consorted now with a small 
aristocratic group of the highest paid draftsmen. They 
met at lunch in a certain favored restaurant. ‘They 
talked shop; but Louis kept his major thoughts to him- 
‘self. His plan was, in due time to select a middle-aged 
architect of standing and established practice, with the 
right sort of clientele; to enter such an office, and 
through his speed, alertness and quick ambitious wit, 
make himself so indispensable that partnership would 
naturally follow. But this was merely a broad plan. 
He had no direct selection in mind, but was looking 
the field over from the corner of his eye. He was in 
no hurry. He believed in the motto: “Be bold but 
prudent.”’ He wished events to shape themselves. 

Now John Edelmann returned. During the dull 
spell he had been away in Iowa trying to play the 
game of farming. The game played him instead. He 
showed up at lunch one winter day, clad a l’outrance 
as a farmer, for his usual theatrical effect. Instantly 
the room was filled with sound as he lustily proclaimed 
the joys of farming in Iowa, twenty miles from no- 
where. 

He entered the architectural office of a firm named 
Burling & Adler. The single, very large square office 
room he flooded with language; he literally “ate up”’ 
the work, as he spouted. Naturally he joined the 
aristocratic lunch-club, and made things lively. As — 
usual he monopolized the conversation, unless rudely 
interrupted. One need not surmise to whom the sound | 
of his voice was music from the spheres. He cut 
loose on his latest fad—single tax—and lauded Henry 


[25in 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


George in superlatives. He drew the long bow, he 
colored all things rosy, told Irish stories well in the 
broad brogue, and on the whole was a nuisance—en- 
tertaining and agreeable. 

One day, after lunch, John asked Louis to come over 
to the office to meet Adler, of whom he had spoken at 
times. Louis went along to please John. They en- 
tered the large bare room, drawing tables scattered 
about; in the center were two plain desks. Those who 
had business came and went unceremoniously. Both 
partners were present and busy. Louis thus had time 
to size them up. Burling was slouched in a swivel 
chair, his long legs covering the desk top; he wiggled 
a chewed cigar as he talked to a caller, and spat into 
a square box. He was an incredible, long and bulky 
nosed Yankee, perceptibly ageing fast, and of mani- 
festly weakening will—one of the passing generation 
who had done a huge business after the fire but whom 
the panic had hit hard. 

Further away stood Adler at a draftsman’s table, 
full front view, well lighted. He was a heavy-set 
short-nosed Jew, well bearded, with a magnificent 
domed forehead which stopped suddenly at a solid 
mass of black hair. He was a picture of sturdy 
strength, physical and mental. 

Louis was presented first to Burling who reached 
out a hand and said “Howdy,” in the distrait manner 
age so frequently bears toward strangely sprouting in- 
comprehensible youth, separated by the gulf of years. 
Next, John led Louis to Adler whose broad serious 
face, and kindly brown efficient eyes, joined in a rich 
smile of open welcome. It did not take many ticks 
of the clock to note that Adler’s brain was intensely 


[ 252 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


active and ambitious, his mind open, broad, receptive, 
and of an unusually high order. He was twelve years 
Louis’s senior, and in the pink of condition. Louis 
was of the exuberant age. Adler thought highly of 
John. The talk was brief and lively; Adler said nice 
things, questioned Louis as to his stay at the Beaux 
Arts. The little talk ended, Louis left; John remained 
in his preserve. ‘This was the last that Louis saw of 
Adler for many moons. He was pleased to have met 
him and to have reason heartily to respect his vigorous 
personality. But he was no part of Louis’s program, 
hence he soon faded from view, and became almost 
completely forgotten. Louis was satisfied with things 
as they were going. He was ambitious but cautious; 
he was waiting for the right man to show up. He did 
not remain too long in any one place, and each time 
increased his salary. 

Meanwhile his days were for work; his ive for 
study, for reflection, and gradual formulation of ideas 
subsidiary to the main Idea he was consciously now 
working out alone. This form of solitude did not 
disturb him. He saw that a Clopet demonstration 
meant a matter of years of work and growth. He was 
_ disturbed, however, by the elusive quality of the main 
thought he was pursuing, which seemed to recede and 
grow larger even as he grew abler to deal with it. 

On a recent Christmas his father had given him a 
copy of John Draper’s work on “The Intellectual 
Development of Europe,” in two volumes; still a nota- 
ble work of the day. This he read and reread with 
absorbing interest, passing over its controversial trend, 
for the ‘war between science and religion” as it was 
called, was still raging. ‘The broad division of the 


[ 253 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


work into an “‘Age of faith,” and an “‘Age of reason” 
held his interest, as he saw set forth the emergence 
and the growth of science as the spirit of man sought 
and found freedom in the open. This coincided with 
his own belief, that man’s spirit must be free that his 
powers may be free to accomplish in beneficence. He 
had discovered, to his annoyance, that in the archi- 
tectural art of his day, the spirit of man was not free, 
nor were his powers so liberated and so trained that 
he might create in beneficence. Not only this, but 
that for centuries it had been the case that art 
had been belittled in superstitions called traditions— 
and lived on by virtue of a thin and baseless faith— 
and John Edelmann’s theory of suppressed functions, 
recurred to him as broadly set forth, in confirmation, 
in Draper’s heavy work. Further than this, Louis 
felt as a result of reading Draper, that his thoughts 
concerning architecture must broaden into a perfected 
sympathy with mankind. That Man, past and pres- 
ent, must and would become more and more signifi- 
cant, would be found to have filled a greater role 
than any art, than any science. ‘That man, perhaps 
and probably was the only real background that gave 
distinction to works appearing in the foreground as 
separated things,—or perhaps was it the invisible spirit 
of mankind that pervaded all things, all works, all 
civilizations, and informed them with the sense of 
actuality? ‘That his, Louis’s true work, was now and 
henceforth to lie in the study of what man now thought, 
and had thought through the centuries. Thus the task 
for him grew larger, and the time required, longer— 
for he was still in the plastic formative groping stage. 


In Darwin he found much food. The Theory of 
[ 254 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


Evolution seemed stupendous. Spencer’s definition im- 
plying a progression from an unorganized simple, 
through stages of growth and differentiation to a highly 
organized complex, seemed to fit his own case, for 
he had begun with a simple unorganized idea of benef- 
icent power, and was beginning to see the enormous 
complexity growing out of it, and enriching its mean- 
ing while insistently demanding room and nurture for 
further growth, until it should reach that stage of 
clarity through the depths of which the original idea 
might again be clearly seen, and its primal power 
more fully understood. ‘Thus, Louis, while still in a 
haze, felt the courage to go on. He had been reading 
the works of men of matured and powerful thought, 
*way beyond his years; but what he could grasp he 
hung on to. He felt the enthusiasm of one who is 
on the way, and who senses that his goal is real. 


* * *K 


One day John Edelmann, who meanwhile had en- 
tered into partnership with a man named Johnson, 
who did school work, sent for Louis to come over that 
evening—said he had something to say. And this was 
his story: That Adler had cut loose from Burling, set 
up independently, and, in collaboration with George 
A. Carpenter, a resourceful promoter, had put through 
the New Central Music Hall, now nearing completion, 
and had other work on hand. The time was early in 
1879. John urged that this was Louis’s opportunity. 
That Adler had all the strong points, but was feeble 
in design and knew it. That he had talked the matter 
over several times with Adler, that Adler was cautious- 
ly and eagerly interested, but timid in making advances. 


[255%] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


Louis saw the point at once. So they made a second 
call on Adler. There ensued a mutual sizing up at 
close range, very friendly indeed. And it was then 
and there agreed that Louis was to take charge of 
Adler’s office, was to have a free hand, and, if all 
went well for a period, and they should get along 
together, there was something tangible in the back- 
ground. Louis took hold and made things hum. Soon 
there came into the office three large orders; a six-story 
high grade office building—the Borden Block; an up- 
to-date theatre, and a large substantial residence. Louis 
put through this work with the efficiency of combined 
Moses Woolson and Beaux Arts training. It was his 
first fine opportunity. He used it. He found in Adler 
a most congenial co-worker, open-minded, generous- 
minded, quick to perceive, thorough-going, warm in 
his enthusiasms, opening to Louis every opportunity to 
go ahead on his own responsibility, posting him on mat- 
ters of building technique of which he had a complete 
grasp, and all in all treating Louis as a prize pet—a 
treasure trove. Thus they became warm friends. 
Adler’s witticisms were elephantine. He said one day 
to Louis: 

‘How would you like to take me into partnership ?” 
Louis laughed. 

“All right,” said Adler, ‘‘draw up a contract for five 
years, beginning first of May. First year you one 
third, after that, even.” : 

Louis drew up a brief memorandum on a sheet of 
ofice stationery, which Adler read over once and 
signed. 

On the first day of May, 1880, D. Adler & Co. 


[ 256 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


moved into a fine suite of offices on the top floor of 
the Borden Block aforesaid. On the first day of May, 
1881, the frm of Adler & Sullivan, Architects, had 
its name on the entrance door. All of which signifies, 
after long years of ambitious dreaming and unremitting 
work, that at the age of 25, Louis H. Sullivan became 
a full-fledged architect before the world, with a repu- 
tation starting on its way, and in partnership with a 
man he had least expected as such; a man whose repu- 
tation was solidly secured in utter honesty, fine intel- 
ligence and a fund of that sort of wisdom which at- 
tracts and holds. Between the two there existed a 
fine confidence and the handling of the work was. 
divided and adjusted on a temperamental basis—each 
to have initiative and final authority in his own field, 
without a sharp arbitrary line being drawn that might 
lead to dissension. What was particularly fine, as we 
consider human nature, was Adler’s open frank way 
of pushing his young partner to the front. 

Now Louis felt he had arrived at a point where he 
had a foothold, where he could make a beginning in 
the open world. Having come into its responsibil- 
ities, he would face it boldly. He could now, undis- 
turbed, start on the course of practical experimentation 
he long had in mind, which was to make an archi- 
tecture that fitted its functions—a realistic architecture 
based on well defined utilitarian needs—that all prac- 
tical demands of utility should be paramount as basis of 
planning and design; that no architectural dictum, or 
tradition, or superstition, or habit, should stand in the 
way. He would brush them all aside, regardless of 
commentators. For his view, his conviction was this: 
That the architectural art to be of contemporary im- 


[207] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


mediate value must be plastic; all senseless conventional 
rigidity must be taken out of it; it must intelligently 
serve—it must not suppress. In this wise the forms 
under his hand would grow naturally out of the needs 
and express them frankly, and freshly. This meant 
in his courageous mind that he would put to the test 
a formula he had evolved, through long contemplation 
of living things, namely that form follows function, 
which would mean, in practice, that architecture might 
again become a living art, if this formula were but 
adhered to. 

The building business was again under full swing, 
and a series of important mercantile structures came 
into the office, each one of which he treated experi- 
mentally, feeling his way toward a basic process, a 
erammar of his own. The immediate problem was 
increased daylight, the maximum of daylight. This 
led him to use slender piers, tending toward a masonry 
and iron combination, the beginnings of a vertical sys- 
tem. This method upset all precedent, and led Louis’s 
contemporaries to regard him as an iconoclast, a revo- 
lutionary, which was true enough—yet into the work 
was slowly infiltrated a corresponding system of artistic 
expression, which appeared in these structures as novel 
and to some repellent, in its total disregard of accepted 
notions. But to all objections Louis turned a deaf ear. 
If a thousand proclaimed him wrong, the thousand 
could not change his course. As buildings varying in 
character came under his hand, he extended to them 
his system of form and function, and as he did so his 
conviction increased that architectural manipulation, as 
a homely art or a fine art must be rendered completely 
plastic to the mind and the hand of the designer; that 


[ 258 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


materials and forms must yield to the mastery of his 
imagination and his will; through this alone could mod- 
ern conditions be met and faithfully expressed. ‘This 
meant the casting aside of all pedantry, of all the arti- 
ficial teachings of the schools, of the thoughtless ac- 
ceptance of inane traditions, of puerile habits of un- 
inquiring minds; that all this mess, devoid of a center 
of gravity of thought, and wacant of sympathy and 
understanding, must be superseded by a sane philosophy 
of a living architecture, good for all time, founded on 
the only possible foundation—Man and his powers. 
Such philosophy Louis had already developed in broad 
outline in the course of his many dissatisfactions and 
contemplations. He wished now to test it out in the 
broad daylight of action, and to perfect its form and 
content. This philosophy developed will be set forth 
in these closing chapters. 

It is not to be supposed that Louis arrived directly 
at results as though by magic. Quite the contrary, he 
arrived slowly though boldly through the years, by 
means of incessant thought, self correction, hard work 
and dogged perseverance. For it was his fascinating 
task to build up a system of technique, a mastery of 
technique. And such a system could scarcely be ex- 
pected to reach its fullness of development, short of 
maturity, assuming it would reach its fullness then, or 
could ever reach it; for the world of expression is limit- 
less; the theory so deep in idea, so rich in content, as 
to preclude any ending of its beneficent, all-inclusive 
power. And we may here recall Monsieur Clopet, the 
book of descriptive geometry that went into the waste 
basket, and the thunderclap admonition: ‘Our demon- 
strations shall be such as to admit of no exception.” 


[2095] 


CHAPTER XIV 


Face to Face 


triously and long; if in so doing one covers a wide 

field and so covering reflects in terms of realism, 
he is likely, soon or late, to be brought to a sudden 
consciousness that Man is an unknown quantity and 
his existence unsuspected. 

One will be equally amazed to note that the philoso- 
phers, the theologians, of all times turned their backs 
upon Man; that, from the depths of introspection, 
fixing their gaze in all directions save the real one, they 
have uniformly evolved a phantasm, or a series of 
phantoms, and have declared such to be man in his 
reality—and such reality to be depraved. A small 
feature, however, was overlooked by them in the neg- 
lect to observe that their man, in his depravity, had 
created the gods. ‘Their insistent view of man—a 
further product of their phantasy—lay in the dogma, 
protean in form, that man is creature. 

Meanwhile the real man was always at their elbow, 
or moving in groups or multitudes about them, or even 
looking them in the eyes and holding converse with 
them. But they did not see him; he was too near, too 
commonplace—too transparent. The gods were far 
away and could be understood. 

The mighty man of war also turned his back. Yet 
the wise man, the warrior and the priest differed in no 
valid sense from the multitude enfolding them as in 
a genesis; for man in his state of depravity as creature, 
created these also, as his demigods. 


[ 260 ] 


[* with open mind one reads and observes indus- 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


Thus man, not knowing himself, and none else 
knowing him, lived as a mirage, within a world of 
mirage which he fancied real. It was real for him; 
for such is the habit of man’s imagination in playing 
tricks with him in his credulity. 

The careful reader and observer again may be as- 
tonished to note that to the multitudes imagination, 
as such, is unknown—that the multitudes are uncon- 
scious of this power within themselves. Hence the 
reader, the observer, who is not so completely uncon- 
scious of himself, becomes aware of the imposing phe- 
nomenon that the huge and varied superstructures of 
the civilizations of all times have rested for support 
on so tenuous a foundation as the fabric of the radiant 
dream of the multitudes. ‘That in such dream he will 
clearly see Imagination playing its clandestine role. 
._ The mass imagination of the multitudes is thus seen 
to be the prime impelling and sustaining power in the 
origins and growth’ of the civilizations. Let the mass 
imagination withdraw its consent, withhold its nourish- 
ing acquiescence and faith, then the civilization founded 
thereon begins to wither at the top, emaciates, atrophies 
and dies. One will further note.that such changes 
in the mass imagination, in the mass dream, are of 
highly varied origins; but once under way, are beyond 
recall. 

One also minutely notes that the tricks of imagina- 
tion are universal and beyond numbering in variety, 
permeating all phases of the social fabric. Hence man’s 
vagaries and follies and cruelties are beyond computa- 
tion; yet all these betrayals and cajolings and trick- 
eries flow from the same single source, namely the indi- 
vidual, unconscious that his imagination is incessantly 


[ 261 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


at work. Because he is not acquainted with its nature, 
and unaware that he is its puppet, his waking hours 
are a continuing dream of inverted Self. 

It is the mass dream of inverted self, populous with 
fears overt and secret, that forms the continuous but 
gossamer thread upon which are strung as phantom 
beads all civilizations from the remotest past of record 
to that of the present day and hour. As we follow 
back upon this thread—one end of which is delicately 
attached to our own inverted secret thoughts, we find 
it unchanging from end to end, regardless of environ- 
ment; the civilizations it passes through and upholds 
on its way are but local manifestations and exhibits. 

This intense and continuing preoccupation with in- 
verted self makes it clear why man has turned his 
back on man, and why man is still unknown to him- 
self—and unsuspected. 

So long as imagination slyly tricked him into self 
deprecation, self debasement and the slavery of the 
creature conviction, or into the opposite, megalomania, 
with its unquenchable thirst for blood, for plunder, 
and dominion; or with siren song beguiled him through 
the portals of a closed world of abstraction,—he could 
not know himself, and the neighbor must remain a 
stranger to be feared, despised, or placated. 

Indeed, until we come as pioneers, to seek out and 
know imagination as such, to view it clearly defined 
as an erratic and dangerous power, to be controlled; 
until we have observed with realistic clarity its multi- 
farious doings from black magic upward to mighty 
deeds of hand and head and heart, we shall remain 
remote from man’s reality, and from the splendor of 
his native powers. pad ee ds 43 


[ 262 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


One who has made the rough pilgrimage through the 
jungled infirmities of philosophy, of theology, and 
through the wilderness of turbid dream-words uttered 
by the practical man who deals in cold, hard facts; one 
who as pioneer worked his troubled way through the 
undergrowth of culture with its acceptances, its pre- 
conceptions and precious finalities; one who, led on by 
a faith unfaltering, at last arrives at the rendezvous 
with Life, here testifies the natural man as sound to the 
core and kindly, yet innocent of himself as the seat of 
genius, as container of limitless creative powers of 
beneficence. 

Solely on the strength of this faith was begun the 
story of a child-dream of power. 


*K * *K 


Wherefore we may now inquire: What are these 
powers, and what is the reality we afirm to be man? 

He is none other than ourselves divested of our 
wrappings. If we in imagination divest ourselves of 
our wrappings we may see that he is ourselves. If we 
remove our blinders we shall see more clearly. If we 
look out between the bars of our self-imprisonment, we 
may note him nearby, walking familiarly in the Garden 
of Life. Undoubtedly he is ourselves, he is our youth, 
he is our spirit, he is that within us which has yearned 
for frank utterance—how long—and still yearns. 

It is appalling to think he is ourselves; to wake from 
our dreams and see him. Yet will it not be inspiriting 
to find him at our elbow—no longer a stranger—no 
longer to be feared? To know that he is like us all? 
To feel the widening sense, as we regard him, that he 
stands not only as our explanation, but as our self- 


[ 263 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


revelation. ‘True, he is not at all what we had sup- 
posed and what we have affirmed. Yet will he be 
grimly recognized as he comes into view—to our 
amaze, for he is precisely that which we have denied. 

We may be shocked at first, retreat, and disclaim; 
for denial of the power of life is our habit of old. We 
have other habits of old woven into weird grotesqueries. 
These are among our wrappings. 


* * OO 


Inasmuch as man has been affirmed herein as sound 
and kindly, let us examine him. Rest assured we shall 
find naught in him that is not truly in ourselves and 
was not there in latency at birth. 

To begin: He is a Worker and a Wanderer in 
varied ways. With his bodily powers he may go here 
and there, he may move objects about, he may change 
the order of things. Here at the onset we find a por- 
tentous power—the power to change situations; he can 
make new situations. With his ten fingers he can do 
wonderful things, make things he needs, make acces- 
sory things to extend his muscular powers. ‘Thus he 
manipulates—he further changes situations. He 
changes his own situations, he creates an environment 
of his own. One sees here the Adventurer, the Crafts- 
man, the Doer,—ever growing in power. ‘Thus man’s 
first collective power within himself is the power to 
aspire, to work—to wander—to go from place to place 
near and far—to return to his home. 

Now comes into view that power we call Curiosity— 
and coupled with it the power to inquire. Man’s 
power to inquire we call a mental power, to distinguish 
it from his somatic power. It may have had a begin- 


[ 264 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


ning, it can have no end. The result of inquiry we call 
knowledge; its high objective we call science. ‘The 
objective of science is more knowledge, more power; 
more inquiry, more power. 

Now, if to the power to do we added the power to 
inquire, Man, the worker, grows visibly more compact 
in power, more potent to change situations and to 
make new situations for himself. The situation may 
be a deep gorge in a wilderness; the new situation 
shows a bridge spanning the chasm in one great leap. 
Thus it is that man himself, as it were, leaps the chasm, 
through the adventurous co-ordination of his power to 
inquire and his power to do. And thus the natural 
man ever enlarges his range of beneficence. His life 
experiences are real. He reverses the dictum “I think: 
Therefore Iam.”’ It becomes in him, J am: Therefore 
I inquire and do! 

It is this afirmative “I am” that is man’s reality. 

Wherefore warrior, philosopher and priest turned 
their backs. ‘his “I am” they could not see, could not 
suspect, even as it stood at their elbow regarding them 
with ordinary human eyes. For it had been settled 
long ago on abundant evidence that man is creature 
and depraved. 

In the history of mankind there are recorded two 
great INVERSIONS. ‘The first, set forth by the Naz- 
arene to the effect that love is a greater power and 
more real than vengeance. The second, proclaimed 
the earth to be a sphere revolving in its course. around 
the sun. hese affirmations were made in the face of 
all evidence sacred to the contrary. Who could feel 
the earth revolving? Who could fail to see the sun 


[ 265 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


rise and set? What but blood could satisfy, or an 
eye for an eye? 

Hence man’s powers were not seen as himself, nor 
himself as his powers. Such recognition would involve 
a reversal and inversion both of sacred lore and com- 
mon sense. 

In reactive consequence of age-long self-repression 
and self-beguilement the world of mankind is now pre- 
paring its way for a Third Inversion. The world of 
heart and head is becoming dimly sentient that man 
in his power is Free spirit—Creator. The long dream 
of inverted self is nearing its end. Emerging from 
the heritage of mystical unconsciousness and phantasy, 
the world of mankind is stirring. Man’s deeds are 
about to become conscious deeds in the open. The 
beauty, the passion, the glory of the past shall merge 
into a new beauty, a new passion, a new glory as man 
approaches man, and recognizing him, rejoices in him 
and with him, as born in power. 


*K *K * 


Never in man’s time has there been such sound war- 
rant for an attitude of Optimism as in our own, the 
very present day. Yet to him who in myopic fear looks 
but at the troubled surface, there appears equal war- 
rant in the phantasy of Pessimism. What a price man 
shall have paid for freedom! For freedom from the 
thrall of his parlous imagination! For freedom from 
the strangle hold of his own phantasmal self! 


> 2K *K 


He who has lived, alive, during the past fifty years 
has viewed an extraordinary drama. He who starting 
young, shall live through the coming fifty years will 


[ 266 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


move within the action and scene shifting of a greater 
drama. 

The gravitation of world thought and dream is shift- 
ing. Out of the serial collapses of age-long feudalism 
is arising a new view of man. For man’s powers in 
certitude, approach the infinite. They are bewilder- 
ing—amazing in diversity. They unfold their intimate 
complexity to our view as an equally amazing solidar- 
ity, as we hold, steadfast, to the realistic concept of 
man as free spirit—as creator—even as the vast com- 
plexity in the outworking of the feudal thought sim- 
plifies into a basic concept of self-delusion and self-fear. 


* *K *K 


Our portrayal is not yet wholly clear. Let us go on. 
There lies another power in man. ‘That power is 
Morat: Its name is CuHorce! Within this one word, 
Choice, lies the story of man’s world. It stands for the 
secret poise within him. It reveals as a flashlight all 
his imagings, his phantasies, his wilful thoughts, his 
deeds, from the greatest to the least, even in this glid- 
ing hour we call today. This one word, Choice, stands 
for the sole and single power; it is the name of the 
mystery that lies behind the veil of all human appear- 
ances. A word that dissolves the enigma of men’s 
_ deeds. A word, a light that not only illuminates all] his 
obvious works, all the inner springs and motives of his 
civilizations, but a light whose rays reach within the 
sanctuary of the secret thought of each and all, thus 
revealing the man of the past and the man of today, 
starkly in personal status as a social factor .of benefi- 
cence or woe. Need we know man’s thoughts? View 
his works, his deeds; they tell his choice. 


[ 267 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


Implicit in true freedom of spirit lies a proud and 
virile will. Such glorious power of free will to choose, 
envisages beneficent social responsibility as manifest 
and welcome. Here now stands in full light Man erect 
and conscious as a moral power. ‘The will to choose 
aright lifts him to the peak of social vision whence he 
may forecast new and true situations. 

a 


The Free Spirit is the spirit of Joy. It delights to 
create in beauty. It is unafraid, it knows not fear. It 
declares the Earth to be its home, and the fragrance of 
Earth to be its inspiration. It is strong, it is mighty 
in beneficence. It views its powers with emotions of 
adventure. Humility it knows not. It dreams a ciy- 
ilization like unto itself. It would create such a world 
for mankind. It has the strength. It sees the strength 
of the fertile earth, the strength of the mountains, the 
valleys, the far spreading plains, the vast seas, the 
rivers and the rivulets, the great sky as a wondrous 
dome, the sun in its rising, its zenith, and its setting, 
and the night. It glories in these powers of earth and 
sky as in its own. It affirms itself integral with them 
all. It sees Life at work everywhere—Life, the mys- 
terious, the companionable, the ineffable, the immensest 
and gentlest of powers, clothing the earth in a pattern 
of radiant sublimity, of tenderness, of fairy delicacy— 
ceaselessly at work. Thus the free spirit feels itself to 
be likewise clothed as with a flowing shoulder-garment, 
symbol of power akin to the fluent mystery and fecun- 
dity of Life. Thus it moves in the open with vision 
clear. ‘Thus is man the wonder-worker bound up in 
friendship with the wonder-worker—Life. 

[ 268 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


Now the real man begins to shape within our vision. 

Consider his primary powers: He, the worker, the 
inquirer, the chooser. Add to these the wealth of his 
emotions—also powers. Think how manifold they are, 
how colorful; how with them he may dramatize his 
works, his thoughts, his choosings; how he may beautify 
his choice. Think of his power to receive; to receive 
through the channels of his senses, to receive through 
his mystic power of sympathy which brings understand- 
ing to illumine Knowledge. Think of what eyesight 
means as a power, the sense of touch, the power to 
hear, to listen; and the power of contemplation. Add 
these to his cumulating interblending power; then think 
again of his enlarging power to act. Deep down within 
him lies that power we call Imagination, the power 
instantly or slowly to picture forth, the power to act in 
advance of action; the power that knows no limitations, 
no boundaries, that renders vivid both giving and 
receiving; the inscrutable dynamic power that energizes 
all other powers. Think of man as Imagination! Then 
think of him as Will! Now enrich the story of his 
prior-mentioned powers with the flow of imagination 
and the steadiness of will. Think anew of his power to 
act; of the quantity and quality of this power. | 
_ Now think of the freedom such power brings! 

Think of the power we call Vision; that inner sight 
which encompasses the larger meanings of its outer 
world, which sees humanity in the broad, which beholds 
the powers without itself, which unifies its inner and 
its outer world, which sees far beyond where the eye 
leaves off seeing, and as sympathetic insight finds its 
goal in the real. 

Now see Man go forth to work, inspired by his vision 


[ 269 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


of the outer world, himself made eager by the passion 
to live and worthily to do! | 

See him go forth in certitude as seer, as prophet, as 
evangelist, proclaiming his faith—in certitude as 
worker, to build a new home. 

See him, as poet, as troubadour, as he goes forth, 
singing the new song, the refreshing song—calling in 
carols: Awake! ye dreamers all, lift up your heads, 
and be your hearts lifted up that Life in splendor may 
come in: Ye who dream in the shadows and are sore 
perplexed. 

Thus the multitudes vibrate, as they dream—at the 
sound of a song in their dream. 

It is the richness of the soul-life of the multitudes 
that inspires and at times appalls the observer. For 
the multitudes are compact of human beings—a vast 
ceaseless flow of individuals, each a dreamer, each la- 
tent in power, the mass moving noiselessly through 
time—slowly changing in its constancy of renewal. 


*K *K * 


Thus though Man now appears before us in glamor 
as a maze of powers, we have not yet made his image 
clear in full, and in diversity. 

While it is plain, when all wrappings are removed, 
we shall find all men to be alike in native possession of 
essential powers, we are at once confronted by this 
paradox: That all men obviously are different; that 
no two are alike. In plain words we find each human 
being unique. When we say unique, we mean the only 
one. [hus each one is the only one. If we have 
mused long upon the immense fecundity and industry of 
Life, the paradox vanishes: The only one and the all 


[ 270 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


coalesce. The individual and the mass become one, in 
a new phase of power whose stupendous potency of 
creative art in civilization stuns the sense of possi- 
bility. 

Now opens to our view the Democratic Vista! 

Now see unfold the power of the only one in mul- 
tiple, and the One become a vast complex of unique 
powers inspired of its free spirit and its power of benef- 
icence—its works now solidly founded on the full emer- 
gence of courage—the evanishment of fear! 


*K *K *K 


Alas, the world has never known a sound social 
fabric, a fabric sound and clean to the core and kindly. 
For it has ever turned its back on Man. Through time 
immemorial it has, in overt and secret fear of self, 
been impotent to recognize the only one, the unique. 
Hence wars and more wars, pestilence, famine and 
desolation; the rise and crumbling of immense fabrics. 

The feudal concept of self-preservation is poisoned 
at the core by the virulent assumption of master and 
man, of potentate and slave, of external and internal 
suppression of the life urge of the only one—of its 
faith in human sacrifice as a means of salvation. 

The only one is Ego—the “I am’’—the unique—the 
most precious of man’s powers, their source and sum- 
mation in diversity. Without Ego, which is Life, man 
vanishes. Ego signifies Identity. It is the free spirit. 
It is not a tenant, it is the all in all. It is present 
everywhere throughout man’s wondrous being. It is 
what we call the spiritual, a term now becoming inter- 
changeable with the physical. It is the sign and sym- 
bol of man’s immense Integrity—the “I am that I 


[271] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


»P] 


am.’ To it the Earth, the world of humanity, the 
multitudes, the universe—become an Egocosm. 

Thus to the eye of the earnest watcher, the dual 
man of legend and of present mythical belief fades, 
incorporeal as a ghost. Departing it leads the ghostly 
feudal scapegoat with its burden of sin. 

It is man’s manifest integrity that reveals him valid 
—sound to the core. It is this spiritual integrity that 
defines him human, that points true to his high moral 
power—the power of valid choice. : 

This new vision of man is the true vision of man. 

Toward this new truth, this inversion, the world of 
mankind slowly turning, vaguely conscious, strives to 
articulate that which is as yet too deep, too remote, 
too new for its words. But it is not too deep, too 
remote or too new for its aspirations. 


* ke ok 


Thus in portrayal stands Man the Reality: Container 
of self-powers: A moving center of radiant energy: 
Awaiting his time to create anew in his proper image. 

Are then the multitudes infertile? Is genius rare? 
Has our traditional education and culture left us whol- 
ly blind? Have we forgotten the children—Egos at 
our elbow? The springtide of genius there! Shall we 
continue to destroy? What is our Choice? How have 
we exercised it? How shall we exercise it? Is our 
moral power asleep? Are we without faith in our 
own? 

Whence, then, this story of a child’s dream of power? 

What shall our dream be? 


2K *k *K 


veal 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


Our dream shall be of a civilization founded upon 
ideas thrillingly sane, a civilization, a social fabric 
squarely resting on man’s quality of virtue as a human 
being; created by man, the real, in the image of his 
fruitful powers of beneficence; created in the likeness 
of his aspirant emotions, in response to the power and 
glory of his true imagination, the power of his intelli- 
gence, his ability to inquire, to do, to make new situa- 
tions befitting his needs. A civilization that shall re- 
flect man sound to the core and kindly in the exercise 
of his will to choose aright. A civilization that shall 
be the living voice, the spring song, the saga of the 
power of his Ego to banish fear and fate, and in the 
courage of adventure and of mastership to shape his 
destiny. 

Such dream is the vigorous daylight dream of man’s 
abounding power, that he may establish in beauty and 
in joy, on the earth, a dwelling place devoid of fear. 
That in the so doing he shall establish an anchorage 
within his universe, in courage, in the mighty spirit of 
adventure, of masterful craftsmanship, as he rises to 
the heights of the new art of all arts,—the art of up- 
building for the race a new, a stable home. 


* * * 


Plainly the outworking of so sublime a conception 
as that of rearing the fabric of a worthwhile civiliza- 
tion upon the basic truth of man’s reality as a sure 
foundation, implies the inversion of a host of fixed 
ideas “‘consecrated by the wisdom of the ages.”’ The 
time has come to place the wisdom of the ages in the 
balance of inquiry; to ascertain, when weighed, wherein 
it may be found wanting in the human sense. One sure 


[ 273 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


test is sanity, for to be unkind is to be dangerously un- 
balanced. 

It is also time to test out the folly of the ages, the 
multifarious corruption involved in abstract and con- 
crete irresponsibility, the abuse of power, the abuse of 
the useful, the successive collapses and ruin, the ever 
present sense of instability, the all-pervading fear, the 
lack of anchorage. 

So testing, we shall find that alike the wisdom and 
folly of the ages rest in utter insecurity upon a false 
concept of the nature of man. For both “wisdom” 
and folly have committed and still commit the double 
folly of turning away from man in contempt. 

Glancing at our modern civilization we find on the 
surface crust essentially the same idea at work that 
has prevailed throughout the past. Yet if we search 
beneath the surface we discern a new power of the 
multitudes everywhere at work. It is the power of a 
changing dream, of a changing choice; of Life urging 
upward to the open the free spirit of man—so long self- 
suppressed under the dead weight of the “consecrated 
wisdom of the ages’’ and its follies. 

* OK * 


The fabricating of a virile, a proud and kindly 
civilization, rich in its faith in man, is surely to consti- 
tute the absorbing interest of the coming generations. 
It will begin to take on its functional form out of the 
resolve of choice, and the liberation of those instincts 
within us which are akin to the dreams of childhood, 
and which, continuing on through the children and the 
children of the children, shall be a guide evermore. 
_ For who shall say the child is not the unsullied well- 
_ spring of power! 

[ 274 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


The chief business now is to pave the way for the 
child, that it may grow wholesome, proud and stalwart 
in its native powers. 

So doing we shall uncover to our view the amazing 
world of instinct in the child whence arises genius with 
its swift grasp of the real. 

The great creative art of upbuilding a chosen and 
stable civilization with its unique culture, implies 
orderly concentration and organization of man’s powers 
toward this sole end, consciously applied in each and 
every one of his socially constructive activities in the 
clear light of his understanding that the actualities of 
good and evil are resident in man’s choice—and not 
elsewhere. ‘Thus will arise a new Morale in its might! 

And let it be well understood that such creative 
energy cannot arise from a welter of pallid abstractions 
as a soil, nor can it thrive within the tyranny of any 
cut and dried system of economics or politics. It must 
and will arise out of the heart, to be nurtured in common 
honesty by the intelligence, and by that sense of artistry 
which does not interfere with the growth of a living 
thing but encourages it to seek and find its own befitting 
form. Thus the living idea of man, the free spirit, 
master of his powers, shall find its form-image in a 
civilization which shall set forth the highest craftsman- 
ship, the artistry of living joyously in stable equilibrium. 

Thus widens the Democratic Vista! 


* * *« 


The historic Feudal thought, sought and found its 
form in a series of civilizations resting upon a denial 
of man by the multitudes themselves, who ‘sought 
cohesion in mutual fear of life, and out of the culture 


[s27a7) 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


of fear they created their tyrants. Their unsafe an- 
chorage lay in the idea of force, in its convincing out- 
ward show of domination, splendor and glory. 

In terror of the unknown, in appeal for mediation, 
the multitudes passed their immense unconscious power 
to those they raised aloft—gods or men, and as value 
received they created and accepted the status of servi- 
tude. Those thus raised aloft became enormously 
parasitic, capping and sapping the strength of the mul- 
titudes. As the latter grew in self-sacrifice and poverty, 
they became luxurious in that they gave their all in 
the name of glory that their children, the great, might 
flourish. They staggered beneath the weight of the 
mighty they upheld aloft and who came to know them 
not—other than as beasts to toil or fight. Thus has 
the feudal super-power ever undermined its own foun- 
dation, ever, in recurring cycle, collapsing and renewing 
—renewing and collapsing. ‘Times, places, names, local 
colors, mechanisms, countenances, change. ‘The idea, 
the thought, the fear, persists through the ages. 


*K ** ** 


For us the chief impress of the self-revealing story 
of mankind lies in the perception that all sanctioning 
power comes from below. From the vast human 
plenum we have called the multitudes, it arises gently, 
massively, step by step, stage by stage, height upon 
height; all of which but signifies the peoples’ dreams of 
glory taking shape vicariously in their times and places. 
The spectacular and imposing groups and summits of 
the feudal superstructure have no other base, no other 
sanction. Like towering cumulus clouds they float upon 
thin air. 


[ 276 | 


PipesUrOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


As there are truths that lie within truths, so are 
there dreams that lie within dreams. The most ancient 
of dreams lies indeed within the feudal dream. This 
dream is none other than the dream of the reality of 
man. 

As truths one by one appear above the surface, ever 
more powerful, farther reaching as they come from 
greater depths of life, so the great deep dream of man’s 
free spirit has been moving upward through the feudal 
dream. ‘The flair of his powers is now sensing in the 
thought of the man of today. 


*K *K * 


With the great inversion of the Earth and the Sun, 
brought definitely about by so small an object as a 
telescope which man in his curiosity invented—created 
—to extend his power of eyesight and the daring 
thought—the dream—it stood for; with this shock of 
inversion definitely began the greatest of man’s adven- 
tures upon his Earth. 

We in present sense and in retrospect call it the 
MODERN. 

The feudal flow poured on, the germ of the modern 
_ growing in embryo apace and inexterminable. Inquiry 
upon inquiry followed; invention upon invention, dis- 
covery upon discovery; and wars and more wars, 
tremors, and the downfall of mighty superstitions; 
cunning and betrayal raged in abuses of delegated 
power, institutions rocked, dogma came forth in the 
open, knife and torch in hand the feudal flow went on 
in stealth, the modern power grew and ramified; there 
-was calm and there was turbulence; onward flowed the 
feudal stream with its new arrangements, its new col- 


PPZries 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


lapses, its new horrors, its new deaths, its new resur- 
rections, as the power of man’s self-determination, the 
assertion of his free spirit, none too articulate as yet, 
none too sane, clarified in growing strength, its inven- 
tions seized upon, its uses turned to abuse, yet goading 
the feudal power into titanic writhings, fears and 
dreads, desperations, ruses and stratagems, wars and 
more wars—the dread phantom of awakening multi- 
tudes—the resolve to foster hate. 

Yet man the worker, the inquirer, ever pushed on- 
ward in hope. Came the printing press, the mariner’s 
compass, the power of steam, railroads, great ships, the 
discovery and development of new vast hidden riches 
of earth, the harnessing of the mystical power of elec- 
tricity, the land telegraph, the ocean cable, the tele- 
phone, the growth of libraries, the daily papers, the 
public schools, the technical schools, the automobile, 
vast systems of transportation of all kinds, the radio, 
the aeroplane, the mastery of the air, the mastery of 
the seas, the mastery of the earth, the increasing mas- 
tery of ideas. The immense growth in power of con- 
structive imagination and of the will to do. And all 
to what end? What may tomorrow and tomorrow 
bring forth out of blood-stained yesterday and the flow- 
ing yesterdays since History's dawn? 

The great drama we herein have called the Modern, 
unique in the story of mankind, beginning with a small 
telescope, advancing to the radio, to the measurement 
of the stars, to the searching out of the utterly minute 
in Life’s infinitude of variety, to enormous strides in 
developments of utility, we may say is in character so 
eye-opening as to constitute the first act in the drama 
of the universal education of mankind through a series 


[ 278 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


of imposing object lessons, changing situations, shift- 
ing scenes. Also, in that act begins the lifting of veils 
revealing object lessons coming closer up, and closer, 
from beneath the surface of feudal repression, and of 
the savage inertia of superstitions born of the habit 
of fear, and of unawareness, of dread of the reality of 
man; object lessons—ever object lessons—crowding 
upon us. 

Among the most startling of these object lessons we 
are coming to apperceive the significance of choice—its 
dire or its joyous man-made results. Slowly in conse- 
quence comes forth from the hitherto invisible, and 
shapes before us, a presence no gesture can debar, no 
noise of words deter,—the sublime, the warning, the 
prophetic image of man as Moral Power. 

Thus clarifies in the dawning light of our modern 
day the fuller meaning, the effulgence of the Demo- 
cratic Vista; the super-power of Democratic Man. 

Moral Power, in the intensity of its choice, in the 
full exercise of its purpose to create a world of sanity, 
of beauty and of joy, alone can cause to dissolve and 
fade into thin air as though it had never been, the 
baleful feudal superstition of dominion and_ blood- 
sacrifice. : 

This moral power residing in the multitudes and 
awakening to voice, is what Democracy means. 

To envisage Democracy as a mechanical, political 
system merely, to place faith in it as such,—or in any 
abstraction, is to foster an hallucination, to join in the 
Dance of Death; to confuse the hand of Esau with the 
voice of Jacob. The lifting of the eyelids of the World 
- is what Democracy means. 

* * x 


[ 279 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ANVWEEe 


The implications of the Democratic Idea branch into 
endless ramification of science, of art, of all industrial 
and social activities of human well-being, through 
which shall flow the wholesome sap of its urge of self- 
preservation through beneficence, drawn up from roots 
running ever deeper and spreading ever finer within 
the rich soil of human kindness and intelligence. For 
kindness is the sanest of powers, and by its fruits shall 
Democracy be known. It is of the antitheses that 
Feudalism has prepared the way for kindness. Kind- 
ness, seemingly so weak, is in fact the name of a great 
adventure which mankind thus far has lacked the cour- 
age, the intelligence, the grit to undertake. Its manly, 
its heroic aspect has been unknown, by reasons of 
inverted notions of reality. This form of myopia is 
of the feudal view. 

In place of myopic ideas, democratic modern thought 
uses clear vision. Clear vision leads to straight think- 
ing, sound thinking to sane action, sane action to benefi- 
cent results that shall endure. 

In this sense of sound thinking and clean action all 
sciences, all arts, all activities, become sentimentally, 
emotionally, dramatically and constructively imbued 
with the stirring, the self-propelling impulse of the 
democratic idea. ‘Therefore they will all hold in com- 
mon a thought whose inexhaustible power will shape a 
common end which shall signify in the solidity of its 
logic fruitful peace and joy on earth, as equally the 
romance of good-will toward men. 


* * 2 


Now that we have a clarifying idea of the nature 
of man and his powers; now that we behold in him 


[ 280 | 


tae AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


that which lies deepest and surest in ourselves, we may 
suggest the nature of a democratic education. 

These things it shall do: 

It shall regard the child body, the child mind, the 
child heart, as a trust. 

It shall watch for the first symptom of surviving 
feudal fear and dissolve it with gentle ridicule while it 
teaches prudence and the obvious consequences of acts. 
No child that can toddle bravely is too young to know 
what choice means, when presented objectively and 
humanly. ‘Thus it shall teach the nature of choice at 
the beginning. 

It shall allow the child to dream, to give vent to its 
wondrous imagination, its deep creative instinct, its 
romance. 

It shall recognize that every child is the seat of 
genius; for genius is the highest form of play with 
Life’s forces. 

It shall allow the precious being to grow in its whole- 
some atmosphere of activities, giving only that cultiva- 
tion which a careful gardener gives—the children shall 
be the garden. | 

It shall utilize the fact that the child mind, in its 
own way, can grasp an understanding of things and 
ideas, supposed now in our pride of feudal thought to 
be beyond its reach. 

It shall recognize that the child, undisturbed, feels 
in its own way the sense of power within it, and about 
it. That by intuition the child is mystic—close to 
nature’s heart, close to the strength of Earth. 

The child thus warded will be a wholesome, happy 
child. It will forecast the pathway to its maturity. 

As from tender age the child grows into robust 


BPA al 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


demonstrative vigor, and ebullition of wanton spirits, 
the technic of warding will pass by degrees into the 
technic of training or discipline—bodily, mentally, emo- 
tionally; the imagination, the intellect, organized to 
work together; the process of co-ordination stressed. 
The idea of the child’s natural powers will be sug- 
gested a little at a time and shown objectively. 

The child by this time is passing out of its reveries; 
life is glowing, very real, very tangible. So shall its 
awakening powers be trained in the glowing real, the 
tangible, the three R’s, made glowing and real to it as 
a part of its world. It is here the difference between 
welcome work and a task comes into play; the differ- 
ence between a manikin and a teacher. 

Now arrives the stage of pre-adolescence—unro- 
mantic urge of hastening vegetative growth; the period 
of the literal, the bovine, disturbed at times by pro- 
phetic reverie. ‘This is the time for literal instruction. 

Now comes the stage of adolescence, when the whole 
being tends to deliquesce into instability, vague ideal- 
isms, emotions hitherto unknown or despised, bashful- 
ness, false pride, false courage, introspection, impulsive- 
ness, inhibitions, awkward consciousness of self, yet 
with an eye clairvoyant to that beauty which it seeks, 
a stirring in the soul of glory, of adventure, of romance. 
The plastic age of impressionability, of enthusiasms. 
Also the Danger Age; the age of extreme susceptibility 
under cover of indifference in self-protection: The age 
when thoughts and musings are most secret. The 
age that makes or breaks. 

This is the crisis where democratic education, recog- 
nizing it as such, shall attain to its first main objective 
in fixing sound character, in alert intensive training of 


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the native power to feel straight, to think straight, to 
act straight, to encourage pride in well-doing, to make 
so clear the moral nature of choice that the individual 
may visualize the responsibilities involved in the con- 
sequences of choice. To train the imagination in con- 
structive foresight, in the feeling for real things, in the 
uses of sentiment, of emotion, in the physical and the 
spiritual joy of living; to stabilize the gregarious into 
the social sense; to set forth the dignity of the ego and 
all egos. © 

This is the time to put on the heavy work, to utilize 
to the full this suddenly evolving power, the recrudes- 
cent power of instinct, to direct this power into worth- 
while channels, to prepare adolescents to become worth- 
while adults, free in spirit, clean in pride, with footing 
on the solid earth, with social vision clear and true. 

The later technical trainings shall be imbued of the 
same spirit. The varied kinds shall all be set forth as 
Specialized yet Unified social activities. Science shall 
be thus understood and utilized, the fine arts shall be 
thus understood and utilized, the industrial arts, the 
arts of applied science, and most urgently the science 
and the art of education, all shall thus be understood 
and utilized as social functions, ministering to the all- 
inclusive art of creating out of the cruel feudal chaos 
of cross purposes, a civilization, in equilibrium, for free- 
men conscious of their powers, and with these powers 
under moral control. 

Such civilization shall endure, and even grow in cul- 
ture, for it shall have a valid moral foundation, under- 
standable to all. It will possess a vigor hitherto 
undreamed of, a versatility, a virtuosity, a plasticity as 
yet unknown, for all work will be done with a living 


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purpose, and the powers of mankind shall be utilized 
to the full, hence there shall be no waste. 
No dream, no aspiration, no prophecy can be saner. 
Man shall find his anchorage in self-recognition. 
Thus broadens and deepens to our comprehension 
the power and the glory of the Democratic Vista! 


[ 284 | 


CHAPTER XV 


Retrospect 


HEN Louis Sullivan was in his eighteenth year, 

his mind a whorl of ambitious ideas, and at a 

time somewhat prior to his departure for Paris, 
he had occasion one day to pass in the neighborhood of 
Prairie Avenue and Twenty-first Street, Chicago. 
There, on the southwest corner of the intersection, his 
eye was attracted by a residence, nearing completion, 
which seemed far better than the average run of such 
structures inasmuch as it exhibited a certain allure or 
style indicating personality. It was the best-designed 
residence he had seen in Chicago. He crossed over to 
examine it in detail, and in passing around the corner 
of the building to analyze the other frontage he noticed 
a fine looking young man, perhaps ten years his senior, 
standing in the roadway absorbed in contemplation of 
the growing work. Louis, without ceremony, intro- 
duced himself, and the young man said: “‘Yes; it seems 
to me I’ve heard of you. Glad to meet you. My 
name’s Burnham: Daniel H. Burnham; my partner, 
John Root, is a wonder, a great artist; I want you to 
meet him some day; you'll like him. The firm is Burn- 
ham and Root. We only started a few years ago. So 
far we've done mostly residences; we're doing this one 
for my prospective father-in-law, John Sherman; you 
know him—he’s a big stockyards man— it’s the most 
expensive one yet. But I’m not going to stay satisfied 
with houses; my idea is to work up a big business, to 
handle big things, deal with big business men, and to 
build up a big organization, for you can’t handle big 


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THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


things unless you have an organization.” And so the 
chat went on for an hour. They exchanged enthu- 
siasms, prophecies, ambitions, and even confidences. 
Louis found Burnham a sentimentalist, a dreamer, a 
man of fixed determination and strong will—no doubt 
about that—of large, wholesome, effective presence, a 
shade pompous, a mystic—a Swedenborgian—a man 
who readily opened his heart if one were sympathetic. 
Soon they were calling each other Louis and Dan, for 
Dan said he did not feel at ease when formal; he liked 
to be man to man. He liked men of heart as well as 
brains. ‘That there was so much loveliness in nature, 
so much hidden beauty in the human soul, so much of 
joy and uplifting in the arts that he who shut himself 
away from these influences and immured himself in 
sordid things forfeited the better half of life. It was 
too high a price to pay, he said. He averred that 
romance need not die out; that there must still be joy 
to the soul in doing big things in a big personal way, 
devoid of the sordid. In parting he said spaciously: 
‘Come around and see John. You two men must have 
much in common; he’ll welcome you as a kindred spirit. 
I’m proud of John as one man can be of another.” 
Years later, probably in the early eighties, Louis 
met John and grew to know him well. At once he 
was attracted by Root’s magnetic personality. He, 
Root, was not of Burnham’s type, but red-headed, large 
bullet-headed, close-cropped, effervescent, witty, small- 
nosed, alert, debonair, a mind that sparkled, a keen 
sense of humor—which Burnham lacked—solidly put 
together, bull-necked, freckled, arms of iron, light 
blue sensuous eyes; a facile draftsman, quick to grasp 
ideas, and quicker to appropriate them; an excellent 


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musician; well read on almost any subject; speaking 
English with easy exactitude of habit, ready and fluent 
on his feet, a man of quick-witted all-round culture 
which he carried easily and jauntily; and vain to the 
limit of the skies. This vanity, however, he tactfully 
took pains should not be too obtrusive. He was a 
man of the world, of the flesh, and considerably of 
the devil. His temperament was that of the well 
groomed free-lance, never taking anything too seriously, 
wherein he differed from his ponderous partner, much 
as dragon fly and mastiff. Nor had he one tenth of his 
partner’s settled will, nor of said partner’s capacity to 
go through hell to reach an end. John Root’s imme- 
diate ambition was to shine; to be the center of admira- 
tion, pitifully susceptible to flattery; hence, a cluster 
of expensive sycophants and hangers on, in whose laps 
it was his pleasure to place his feet by way of reminder, 
as he allowed himself to be called ‘“‘John”’ by the little 
ones. Nevertheless, beneath all this superficial non- 
sense Louis saw the man of power, recognized him, 
had faith in him and took joy in him as a prospective 
and real stimulant in rivalry, as a mind with which it 
would be well worth while to clash wits in the promo- 
tion of an essentially common cause. Louis, true to his 
form of appropriating to himself and considering as 
a part of himself the things and personalities he valued 
—as he had done with Moses Woolson, Michael 
Angelo, Richard Wagner, et alii—immediately an- 
nexed John Root to his collection of assets; or, if one 
so wills to put it—to his menagerie of personalities 
great and small. 

Architecturally, John Root’s mania was to be the 
first to do this or that or the other. He grasped at 


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THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


novelties like a child with new toys. He thought them 
eficacious and lovely—then one by one he threw them 
away. And the while, Burnham’s megalomania con- 
cerning the largest, the tallest, the most costly and 
sensational, moved on in its sure orbit, as he painfully 
learned to use the jargon of big business. He was 
elephantine, tactless, and blurting. He got many a 
humiliating knock on the nose in his quest of the big, 
but he faltered not—his purpose was fixed. Himself 
not especially susceptible to flattery except in a senti- 
mental way, he soon learned its eficacy when plastered 
thick on big business men. Louis saw it done repeat- 
edly, and at first was amazed at Burnham’s effrontery, 
only to be more amazingly amazed at the drooling of 
the recipient. The method was crude but it worked. 
Thus, there came into prominence in the architec- 
tural world of Chicago two firms, Burnham & Root, 
and Adler & Sullivan. In each firm was a man with 
a fixed irrevocable purpose in life, for the sake of which 
he would bend or sacrifice all else. Daniel Burnham 
was obsessed by the feudal idea of power. Louis Sul- 
livan was equally obsessed by the beneficent idea of 
Democratic power. Daniel chose the easier way, Louis 
the harder. Each brooded incessantly. John Root 
was so self-indulgent that there was risk he might never 
draw upon his underlying power; Adler was essentially 
a technician, an engineer, a conscientious administrator, 
a large progressive judicial and judicious mind securing 
alike the confidence of conservative and radical, plenty 
of courage but lacking the dream-quality of Burnham; 
and such he must remain—the sturdy wheel-horse of. 
a tandem team of which Louis did the prancing. Un- 
questionably, Adler lacked sufficient imagination; so 


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THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


in a way did John Root—that is to say, the imagination 
of the dreamer. In the dream-imagination lay Burn- 
ham’s strength and Louis’s passion. 

So matters stood in the early eighties and onward. 
The practice of both firms grew steadily. 

Meanwhile, throughout all the activities of profes- 
sional life, Louis never ceased in steady contemplation 
of the nature of man and his powers, of the mystery of 
that great life which enfolds and permeates us all; the 
marvel of nature’s processes which the scientists call 
laws; and the imperturbable enigma of good and evil. 
He was too young to grasp the truth that the fair- 
appearing civilization within which he lived was but a 
huge invisible man-trap, man-made. Of politics he 
knew nothing and suspected nothing, all seemed fair 
on the surface. Of man’s betrayal by man on a colos- 
sal scale he knew nothing and suspected nothing. He 
had heard of the State and had read something about 
the State, but had not a glimmering of the meaning of 
the State. He had dutifully read some books on polit- 
ical economy because he thought he had to, and had 
accepted their statements as fact. He had also heard 
vaguely something about finance and what a mystery it 
was. In other words, Louis was absurdly, grotesquely 
credulous. How could it be otherwise with him? He 
believed that most people were honest and intelligent. 
How could he suspect the eminent? So Louis saw the 
real world upside down. He was grossly ignorant. 
He prospered, so the world was fair. Later he sent 
forth his soul into the world and by and by his soul 
returned to him with an appalling message. 

For long Louis had lived in a fool’s paradise; it 
was well he so lived in illusion. For had the hideous 


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THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


truth come to him of a sudden, it would have ‘“‘dashed 
him to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’’ So he kept on 
with his innocent studies, becoming more and more 
enamoured of the sciences, particularly those dealing 
with forms of life and the aspects of life’s urging, 
called functions. And amid the immense number and 
variety of living forms, he noted that invariably the 
form expressed the function, as, for instance, the oak 
tree expressed the function oak, the pine tree the func- 
tion pine, and so on through the amazing series. And, 
inquiring more deeply, he discovered that in truth it 
was not simply a matter of form expressing function, 
but the vital idea was this: ‘hat the function created 
or organized its form. Discernment of this idea threw 
a vast light upon all things within the universe, and 
condensed with astounding impressiveness upon man- 
kind, upon all civilizations, all institutions, every form 
and aspect of society, every mass-thought and mass- 
result, every individual thought and individual result. 
Hence, Louis began to regard all functions in nature as 
powers, manifestations of the all-power of Life, and 
thus man’s power came into direct relationship with 
all other powers. The application of the idea to the 
Architectural art was manifest enough, namely, that 
the function of a building must predetermine and organ- 
ize its form. But it was the application to man’s 
thought and deeds; to his inherent powers and the re- 
sults of the application of these powers, mental, moral, 
physical, that thrilled Louis to the depths as he realized 
that, as one stumbling upon a treasure, he has found 
that of which he had dreamed in Paris, and had prom- 
ised himself to discover,—a universal law admitting 
of no exception in any phase or application whatsoever. 


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THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


Thus Louis believed he had found the open sesame, 
and that his industry would do the rest. But this inno- 
cent and credulous young person was not yet cynical 
in inquiry; he was too much of an enthusiastic boy to 
suspect that within the social organism were mask- 
forms, counterfeit forms, forms with protective colora- 
tion, forms invisible except to those in the know. 
Surely, he was an innocent with his heart wrapped up 
in the arts, in the philosophies, in the religions, in the 
beatitudes of nature’s loveliness, in his search for the 
reality of man, in his profound faith in the beneficence 
of power. So he lived in his world, which, to be sure, 
was a very active world indeed. And yet, withal, he 
had a marked ability to interpret the physiognomy of 
things, to read character, to enter into personalities. 
He knew a dishonest man as readily as he knew a 
snake if he came in contact with him. Per contra he 
knew an honest man—and there were many. What 
delighted him was to observe the ins and outs of per- 
sonality—wherein he was especially sensitive and keen 
to the slightest rhythms. | 

One day Louis dropped in to see John Root in his 
office in the “Montauk,” a large office building recently 
completed by his firm. John was in his private room 
at work designing an interesting detail of some build- 
ing. He drew with a rather heavy, rapid stroke, and 
chatted as he worked. Burnham came in. “John,” 
he said, “‘you ought to delegate that sort of thing. The 
only way to handle a big business is to delegate, dele- 
gate, delegate.’ John sneered. Dan went out, in 
something of a huff. Louis saw the friction of ideas 
between the artist and the merchant; a significant mis- 
mating which made him ponder. And he watched 


P2914 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


through the years the growing of Daniel Hudson Burn- 
ham into a colossal merchandiser. Louis at that time 
had not grasped the significance of choice, much less its 
social and anti-social phases, the ramification of its 
effects as a cause, its complete explanation of things 
that seemed veiled. Dan Burnham had chosen. 

John Root also had chosen, and he had a temper. 
He knew at least the value of social prestige. To be 
the recognized great artist, the center of acclaim and 
réclame was his goal. But John did not live to carry 
out his program to the full, though he had a full grown 
moral courage that in Burnham was rudimentary. He 
departed this vale of tears, and this best of all possible 
worlds, 15 January, 1891, at the age of 41, leaving in 
Louis’s heart and mind a deep sense of vacancy and 
loss. For John Root had it in him to be great, as 
Burnham had it in him to be big. John Wellborn Root 
in passing left a void in his wake. 

For several years there had been talk to the effect 
that Chicago needed a grand opera house; but the 
several schemes advanced were too aristocratic and 
exclusive to meet with general approval. In 1885 
there appeared the man of the hour, Ferdinand W. 
Peck, who declared himself a citizen, with firm belief 
in democracy—whatever he meant by that; seemingly 
he meant the “‘peepul.”” At any rate, he wished to give 
birth to a great hall within which the multitude might 
gather for all sorts of purposes including grand opera; 
and there were to be a few boxes for the haut monde. 
He had a disturbing fear, however, concerning acous- 
tics, for he understood success in that regard was more 
or less of a gamble. So he sought out Dankmar Adler 
and. confided. 


[ 292 J 


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The only man living, at the time, who had had 
the intelligence to discern that the matter of acoustics 
is not a science but an art—as in fact all science is 
sterile until it rises to the level of art—was Dankmar 
Adler, Louis’s partner. His scheme was simplicity it- 
self. With his usual generosity he taught this very 
simple art to his partner, and together they had built 
a number of successful theatres. Hence Peck, the 
dreamer for the populace, sought Adler, the man of 
common sense. Between them they concocted a 
scheme, a daring experiment, which was this: To 
install in the old Exposition Building on the lake front, 
a vast temporary audience room, with a huge scenic 
stage, and to give therein a two-weeks season of grand 
opera, engaging artists of world fame. 

This was done. The effect was thrilling. An audi- 
ence of 6,200 persons saw and heard; saw in clear line 
of vision; heard, even to the faintest pianissimo. No 
reverberation, no echo,—the clear untarnished tone, of 
voice and instrument, reached all. The inference was 
obvious: a great permanent hall housed within a monu- 
mental structure must follow. This feeling marked the 
spirit of the Chicago of those days. 

Ferdinand W. Peck, or Ferd. Peck as he was gen- 
erally known—now “Commodore” at 75, took, on 
his slim shoulders, the burden of an immense under- 
taking and “saw it through.” To him, therefore, 
all praise due a bold pioneer; an emotionally exalted 
advocate of that which he, a rich man, believed in 
his soul to be democracy. The theatre seating 4,250 
he called the Auditorium, and the entire structure com- 
prising theatre, hotel, office building, and tower he 
named the Auditorium Building—nobody knows just 


PPE 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


why. Anyway it sounded better than “Grand Opera 
House.” 

For four long years Dankmar Adler and his part- 
ner labored on this enormous, unprecedented work. 
Adler was Peck’s man. As to Louis he was rather 
dubious, but gradually came around—conceding a 
superior esthetic judgment—which for him was in the 
nature of a miracle. Besides, Louis was young, only 
thirty when the task began, his partner forty-two, and 
Peck about forty; Burnham forty—Root thirty-six. 

Burnham was not pleased; nor was John Root pre- 
cisely entranced. It is said the ancient Egyptians held 
a belief that man’s shadow is a fifth or residual element 
of his soul. About this time—the earlier days—Burn- 
ham’s shadow seemed to precede or follow him on all 
fours with its nose to the ground, as if perturbed. Mr. 
Peck had an able board of directors; among them was 
a man named Hale, William E. Hale. Mr. Hale’s 
shadow seemed also perturbed and quadruped. Then 
came our old friend of ‘“Tech’’ and Columbia, Prof. 
William R. Ware, whose shadow seemed serene. Then 
all shadows disappeared from the scene. 

The unremitting strain of this work doubtless short- 
ened Adler’s life. He. did not collapse at the end as 
Louis did; rather the effect was deadly and constitu- 
tional. lLouis’s case was one of utter weariness. He 
went to central California. The climate irritated him. 
Then he moved to Southern California—the climate 
irritated him. ‘This was during January and Febru- 
ary, 1890. He had friends in San Diego and stayed 
there awhile. There he learned, at four o’clock one 
morning, what a “‘slight’” earthquake shock is like. 
Then on to New Orleans. That filthy town, as it then 


[ 294 ] 


Peeet! ODIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


was, disillusioned him. Here he met Chicago friends. 
They persuaded him to go with them to Ocean Springs, 
Mississippi, eighty odd miles to the eastward on the 
eastern shore of Biloxi Bay. He was delighted and 
soothed by the novel journey through cypress swamp, 
wide placid marsh with the sails of ships mysteriously 
moving through the green, and the piney woods; Bay 
St. Louis, so brilliant; more piney woods, then Biloxi 
Bay’s wide crossing; then, as dusk neared, the little 
frame depot with its motley platform crowd; the crip- 
pled hacks, the drive to the old hotel, pigs and cows 
wandering familiarly in the streets, all passing into 
silhouette, for night comes fast. Ah, what delight, 
what luxury of peace within the velvety caressing air, 
the odor of the waters and the pines. 

With daylight there revealed itself an undulating 
village all in bloom in softest sunshine, the gentle 
sparkle of the waters of a bay land-locked by Deer 
Island; a village sleeping as it had slept for generations 
with untroubled surface; a people soft-voiced, uncon- 
cerned, easy going, indolent; the general store, the post 
office, the barber shop, the meat market, on Main 
Street, sheltered by ancient live oaks; the saloon near 
the depot, the one-man jail in the middle of the street 
back of the depot; shell roads in the village, wagon 
trails leading away into the hummock land; no “‘enter- 
prise,’ no “progress,” no booming for a “Greater 
Ocean Springs,’’ no factories, no anxious faces, no glare 
of the dollar hunter, no land agents, no hustlers, no 
drummers, no white-staked lonely subdivisions. Peace, 
peace, and the joy of comrades, the lovely nights of 
sea breeze, black pool of the sky oversprinkled with 
stars brilliant and uncountable. 


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Here in this haven, this peaceful quiescence, Louis’s 
nerves, long taut with insomnia, yielded and renewed 
their life. In two weeks he was well and sound. By 
day interesting rambles, little journeys of discovery in 
nook and byway, a growing desire to buy, which speed- 
ily floated as gossip concerning these Chicago million- 
aires, to the sharp ears of a Michigan Yankee who had 
settled there a while before, some miles to the eastward. 
He called. He said his name was Newcomb Clark, 
that he had been Speaker of the House in his State, 
and a volunteer Colonel in the Civil War. 

‘“T came here for my health. I’ve cleared part of 
my land and built a house, but my wife is lonely, so 
far from town; we need neighbors more than trees. 
I’ve a fine piece of woodland. It’s pretty wild, now. 
But if you clear it of pines and undergrowth the live 
oaks will show. You can set your houses close to the 
road that runs along the shore. I'll make the price 
right. Would you folks like to see it ?” | 

Us folks certainly would like to see it right away. 
The trail wound up and down, crossed a bayou, then 
followed the shore, ascended a low bluff, following its 
edge, passing by some second growth at the left which 
gradually changed character, increased in height and 
density. Louis was becoming excited. At last the 
Colonel stopped, rose in his light wagon, and with a 
broad gesture as though addressing the House, he 
said: “This is my land.” 

Louis clasped his hand to his heart in an ecstasy of 
pain. What he saw was not merely woodland, but a 
stately forest, of amazing beauty, utterly wild. Non- 
commercial, it had remained for years untouched by 
the hand of man. Louis, breathless, worked his way as 


[ 296: 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


best he could through the dense undergrowth. He 
nearly lost his wits at what he discovered; immense 
rugged short-leaved pines, sheer eighty feet to their stiff 
gnarled crowns, graceful swamp pines, very tall, deli- 
cately plumed; slender vertical Loblolly pines in dense 
masses; patriarchal sweet gums and black gums with 
their younger broods; maples, hickories, myrtles; in 
the undergrowth, dogwoods, Halesias, sloe plums, buck- 
eyes and azaleas, all in a riot of bloom; a giant mag- 
nolia grandiflora near the front—all grouped and 
arranged as though by the hand of an unseen poet. 
Louis saw the strategy. He knew what he could do. 
He planned for two shacks or bungalows, 300 feet 
apart, with stables far back; also a system of develop- 
ment requiring years for fulfillment. 

The Colonel made the price right, not over ten times 
what he paid. The deed ran thus: Beginning at a 
cross on a hickory tree at the beach, thence north, so 
many chains (a quarter mile), then east, etc., and 
south to the beach, with riparian rights, etc. The 
building work was let to a local carpenter. On 12 
March, 1890, the comrades light-heartedly looking to- 
ward the future, made their way toward Chicago. 

This reverie is written in memoriam. After eighteen 
years of tender care, the paradise, the poem of spring, 
Louis’s other self, was wrecked by a wayward West 
Indian hurricane. 

“Twas here Louis did his finest, purest thinking. 
"Twas here he saw the flow of life, that all life became 
a flowing for him, and so the thoughts the works of 
man. *Iwas here he saw the witchery of nature’s fleet- 
ing moods—those dramas gauged in seconds. ’Iwas 
here he gazed into the depths of that flowing, as the 


C778! 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


mystery of countless living functions moved silently 
into the mystery of palpable or imponderable form. 
"Twas here Louis underwent that morphosis which is 
all there is of him, that spiritual illumination which 
knows no why and no wherefor, no hither and no hence, 
that peace which is life’s sublimation, timeless and 
spaceless. Yet he never lost his footing on the earth; 
never came the sense of immortality: One life surely 
is enough if lived and fulfilled: That we have yet to 
learn the true significance of man; to realize the de- 
struction we have wrought; to come to a consciousness 
of our moral instability: For man is god-like enough 
did he but know it—did he but choose, did he but re- 
move his wrappings and his blinders, and say good-bye 
to his superstitions and his fear. 

Arrived in Chicago, Louis at once went to work 
with his old-time vim. Important work was at hand 
in other cities as well as in Chicago. The steel-frame 
form of construction had come into use. It was first 
applied by Holabird & Roche in the Tacoma Office 
Building, Chicago; and in St. Louis, it was given first 
authentic recognition and expression in the exterior 
treatment of the Wainwright Building, a nine-story 
office structure, by Louis Sullivan’s own hand. He felt 
at once that the new form of engineering was revolu- 
tionary, demanding an equally revolutionary architec- 
tural mode. ‘That masonry construction, in so far as 
tall buildings were concerned, was a thing of the past, 
to be forgotten, that the mind might be free to face 
and solve new problems in new functional forms. That 
the old ideas of superimposition must give way before 
the sense of vertical continuity. 

Louis welcomed new problems as challenges and 


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THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


tests. He had worked out a theory that every prob- 
lem contains and suggests its own solution. That a 
postulate which does not contain and suggest its solu- 
tion is not in any sense a problem, but a misstatement 
of fact or an incomplete one. He had reached a con- 
viction that this formula is universal in its nature and 
in application. In this spirit he continued his aggres- 
sive research in creative architecture, and, simulta- 
neously—it may seem a far cry—his studies in the 
reality of man. For he had reached the advanced 
position that if one wished to solve the problem of man’s 
nature, he must seek the solution within man himself, 
that he would surely find the suggestion within man’s 
powers; but, that to arrive at a clear perception of 
the problem, he must first remove the accumulated 
mythical, legendary overlay, and then dissolve the 
cocoon which man had spun about himself with the 
thread of his imaginings. This, in considerable meas- 
ure, he had succeeded in doing. 

The work of the firm had taken Louis over a large 
part of the country, as Adler did not care much for | 
travel. Louis, on the contrary, retained his boyhood 
delight in it, and took pains to do as much of it as 
possible by daylight. For there was fascination in the 
changing scene, in the novel aspects of locality. ‘Thus 
in time, and on his own account, he had acquired a 
bird’s-eye view of the broad aspects of his native land, 
having been in all the States except Delaware, Okla- 
homa, and the northern parts of New England. And 
he came to wonder how many people could visualize 
their country as a whole, in all its superb length and 
breadth, in its varied topography, its changing flora, 
its mountain ranges, its hilly sections, its immense 


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prairies and plains, vast rivers and lakes, deserts and 
rich soils, immense wealth within the soil and above 
and below it. He visualized its main rhythms as south 
to north, and north to south; that in crossing the con- 
tinent at various parallels from east to west, or west 
to east, one obtained superb cross-sections. 

And he dramatized the land and the seasons. 

He saw, as a vast moving picture, Spring, coming 
from the Gulf, moving gently northward, its Vanguard 
awakening that which sleeps; with its joyous trumpets 
sounding the call of rejuvenescence, luring forth the 
multicolored blossoming of tree and shrub, and herb, 
the filigree of verdure growing into opulence; setting 
the plow in motion, and the sowing of crops; its vast 
frontage, sweeping northward, ever northward toward 
the arctic. 

In its wake follows sober Summer, ripening the pro- 
creative ecstasy of Spring—soon the waving grain, the 
laden bough, the hour of maturity of Nature’s lavish 
gifts to Man. 

Then the menopause. 

Then the reversal, as Winter begins its vast migra- 
tion from the polar spaces. It, too, heralds its coming 
with trumpets, sonorous in major chords, as the woods 
burst into painted flames as the Vanguard moves on, 
creeping toward the south with its fires. 

And then the modulation into melancholy; grey 
skies, leafless trees, brown faded stubble; a modulation 
into the minor mode, as winter trombones and violins 
sigh and moan with the winds over hill and dale, moun- 
tain and plain, and the frost glimmers in the moon- 
light, all sap sinks into the ground, a miserere chants, 
shrill fifes announce sharp winds, snow flurries, 


[ 300 | 


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as nature passes into somber resignation. Winter, in 
mass, moving south, ever southward, its Vanguard 
now lost in the blue waters; its serried ranks sifting 
snow flakes in the air till the sleeping earth lies still 
under beauteous coverlet of white within the vast 
brooding power that came from the north. 

Again the menopause. 

Again the call of Spring. 

Again a menopause. 

Again the flaming banners and the field of white. 
Northward and southward, southward and northward, 
moving in superb rhythms of alternate urging, o’er the 
expanse of what was once a virgin sleeping continent, 
now peopled by millions with one language in common, 
but no soul, a people unaware, their shadows rum- 
maging like swine in the muck of cupidity. A people 
of enormous power—and devil take the hindmost. A 
time of laissez faire and unto him that hath, if he can 
grab it, shall be given; with here and there a soul plead- 
ing for kindness, and peace, and sanity. 

Louis, through the years, had become powerfully 
impressed by two great rhythms discernible alike in 
nature and in human affairs, as of the same essence. 
‘These two rhythms he called Growth and Decadence; 
and in 1886 he wished to say something about them. 
He wished, for the first time, to put his thoughts in 
writing; and a convention of The Western Associa- 
tion of Architects furnished the pretext and occasion. 
He called his essay “INSPIRATION.” The thesis fell 
into three parts: ‘““GRrowTus: A Spring Song”; “DeE- 
CADENCE: An Autumn Reverie”; ‘The INFINITE: A 
Song of the Sea’; the transition from part to part 
effected by two interludes; the thought sustained to 


[ 301 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


the point of rhapsody, in utterance, lyric and dramatic, 
of flowing prose: The Poet in solitude, alone with 
nature’s moods; first ecstasy, then sorrow and bewilder- 
ment, then tragic appeal that the sea might give answer: 


Deny me not, Oh sea! for indeed I am come 
to thee as one aweary with long journeying 
returns expectant to his native land. 


Deny me not that I should garner now among 
the drifted jetsam on this storm-wash shore, 

a fragmentary token of serenity divine. 
For I have been, long wistful, here beside 
thee, my one desire floating afar on medita- 
tion deep, as the helpless driftwood floats, 
and is borne by thee to the land. 


With the exception of John Root, Paul Lautrup, Rob- 
ert Craik McLean, then editor of The Inland Ar- 
chitect, now the Western Architect, and perchance 
a few others, the effusion did not take. The consensus 
of opinion was to the effect that “they” did not know 
what Louis was talking about and did not believe 
“he” did; that he was plainly crazy, for what had all 
this flowery stuff to do with architecture anyhow? 
Louis fully agrees with “them,” considering their point 
of view. As to McLean, the essay stuck in his red wild 
Canadian hair like a burr, through the years. Indeed, 
in a pious orgy as late as 1919, he, in his magazine, 
wrote this: ‘Some thirty-five years ago, at Chicago, 
a young man read a poetical essay before a group of 
architects, representative of the profession in the Mid- 
dle West. Few understood the metaphor, but all rec- 
ognized the fervor of aspiring and inspired genius that 


[ 302 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


produced Louis H. Sullivan’s ‘Inspiration.’ He called 
this most remarkable blank versification a ‘Spring 
Song,’ and, though unconsciously, perhaps, it was his 
architectural thesis. His executions since that far-away 
time, with a remarkable measure of success, have been 
expressive of those fundamentals held by his hearers 
to be but abstract symbolisms.” 

What delicious and inspired euphemisms! 

Louis regards the work as a bit sophomoric, and 
over-exalted, but the thought is sound. Excepting 
specifications he did not write again for a number 
of years. -He was too busy thinking, working; he pre- 
ferred the world of action. Still, later on, among the 
murals of the Auditorium Theatre, were two in rem- 
iniscence, one bearing the legend ‘“‘O, soft, melodious 
Springtime! First-born of life and love!’ and its 
pendant, inscribed: “A great life has passed into the 
tomb, and there, awaits the requiem of Winter’s snows.” 

The drawings of the Auditorium Building were now 
well under way. Louis’s heart went into this struc- 
ture. It is old-time now, but its tower holds its head 
in the air, as a tower should. It was the culmination 
of Louis’s masonry “‘period.”’ 

Referring again to the essay: Louis thought he 
would try it on the higher culture. So he sent a 
copy to his aged friend, Professor of Latin in the 
University of Michigan, who wrote in return: ‘The 
language is beautiful, but what on earth you are talk- 
ing about I have not the faintest idea.”’ 

Alas, an arm chair and a class room have been 
known to shut out the world. | 


[ 303 ] 


RETROSPECT 
if Chicago, the progress of the building art from 


1880 onward was phenomenal. ‘The earlier days 
had been given over to four-inch ashlar fronts, 
cylinder glass, and galvanized iron cornices, with cast 
iron columns and lintels below; with interior construc- 
tion of wood joists, posts and girders; continuous and 
rule-of-thumb foundations of ‘‘dimension stone.’ Plate 
glass and mirrors came from Belgium and France; 
rolled iron beams—rare and precious—came from Bel- 
gium; Portland cement from England. The only avail- 
able American cements were “Rosendale,” “Louisville”’ 
and ‘Utica”—called natural or hydraulic cements. 
Brownstone could be had from Connecticut, marble 
from Vermont, granite from Maine. Interior equip- 
ments such as heating, plumbing, drainage, and ele- 
vators or lifts, were to a degree, primitive. Of timber 
and lumber—soft and hard woods—there was an 
abundance. ‘This general statement applies mainly to 
the business district, although there were some solid 
structures to be seen. And it should be noted that 
before the great fire, a few attempts had been made to 
build “fireproof”? on the assumption that bare iron 
would resist fire. As to the residential districts, there 
were increasing indications of pride and display, for 
rich men were already being thrust up by the mass. 
The vast acreage and square mileage, however, con- 
sisted of frame dwellings; for, as has been said, Chi- 
cago was the greatest lumber market “in the world.” 
Beyond these inflammable districts were the prairies 
and the villages. 
The Middle West at that time was dominantly agri- 


[ 304 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


cultural; wheat, corn, other grains, hogs, while cattle 
and sheep roamed the unfenced ranges of the Far 
Western plains. Lumbering was a great industry with 
its attendant saw mills and planing mills, and there 
were immense lumber yards along the south branch of 
the Chicago River, which on occasion made gallant 
bonfires. And it so happened that, as Louis heard a 
banquet orator remark, in the spread eagle fashion of 
the day, Chicago had become “the center of a vast 
contiguous territory.”’ 

Great grain elevators gave accent to the branches 
of the river. There was huge slaughter at the Stock 
Yards, as droves of steers, hogs and sheep moved bel- 
lowing, squealing, bleating or silently anxious as they 
crowded the runways to their reward. ‘The agon- 
ized look in the eyes of a steer as his nose was pulled 
silently down tight to the floor ring, in useless pro- 
test, the blow on the crown of the skull; an endless 
procession of oncoming hogs hanging single file by the 
heel—a pandemonium of terror—one by one reaching 
the man in the blood-pit; the knife pushed into a soft 
throat then down, a crimson gush, a turn in the trolley, 
- an object drops into the scalding trough, thence on its 
way to the coterie of skilled surgeons, who manipulate 
with amazing celerity. Then comes the next one and 
the next one and the next, as they have been coming 
ever since, and will come. 

Surely the story of the hog is not without human 
interest. The beginning, a cute bit of activity, tug- 
ging in competition with brothers and sisters of the 
litter, pushing aside the titman, while she who brought 
these little ones to the light lies stretched full length 
on her side, twitching a corkscrew tail, flapping the 


[ 305 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


one ear, grunting softly even musically as the little 
ones push and paw, heaving a sigh now and again, 
moving and replacing a foot, flies buzzing about thick 
as the barnyard odors; other hogs of the group mov- 
ing waywardly in idle curiosity, grunting conversation- 
ally, commenting on things as they are; others asleep. 
The farmer comes at times, leans over the fence and 
speculates on hog cholera; for these are his precious 
ones; they are to transmute his corn. Mentally he 
estimates their weights; he regards the sucklings with 
earnest eyes; he will shave on Sunday next. ‘To him 
this is routine, not that high comedy of rural tran- 
quillity, in peace and contentment, seen by the poet’s 
eye, as he hangs his harp upon the willow and works 
the handle of the pump, and converses in city speech 
with the farmer of fiction and of fact, in the good 
old days, as the kitchen door opens suddenly and the 
farm wife throws out slops and disappears as quickly. 
Such were the home surroundings of the pretty white 
suckling, such were to form the background of his 
culture; all one family, crops and farmer, weather fair 
or untoward, big barn, little house, barnyard and 
fields, horses, ploughs, harrows, and their kin; cows, 
chickens, turkeys, ducks, all one family, with the little 
pig’s cousins that romped and played—one perhaps 
to dream and go to Congress, others to dream and, 
when the time should come that their country needed 
them, would answer their country’s call, it may be to 
fill little holes in the ground where poppies ‘grow and 
bloom. 

Meanwhile the little white suckling grows to full 
pig stature, which signifies he has become a hog, with 
all a hog’s background of culture. He, too, answers 


[ 306 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


his country’s call, though himself not directly bent on 
making the world safe for democracy. He is placed 
by his friends in a palace car with many of his kind, 
equally idealistic, equally educated. ‘The laden train 
moves onward. At the sidings our hero is watered to 
save shrinkage, and through the open spaces between 
the slats—the train at rest—he gazes at a new: sort 
of human being, men doing this and that; they, too, 
answering their country’s call, at so much per call, 
and he wonders at a huge black creature passing by 
grunting most horribly. Again the train moves on, 
stops, and moves on. In due time what was once the 
pink and white suckling, meets the man with the knife. 
But he is not murdered, he is merely slaughtered. Yet 
his earthly career is not ended; for soon he goes forth 
again into the work—much subdivided it is true—to 
seek out the tables of rich and poor alike, there to be 
‘welcomed and rejoiced in as benefactor of mankind. 
Thus may a hog rise to the heights of altruism. It does 
not pay to assume lowly origins as finalities, for it is 
shown that good may come out of the sty, as out of 
the manger. Thus the life story of the hog gains in 
human interest and glory, as we view his transfigura- 
tion into a higher form of life, wherein he is not dead 
but sleepeth. And yet, upon reflection, what about 
other pink and whites at the breast today? Are they 
to grow up within a culture which shall demand of 
them their immolation? or shall they not? 

Inasmuch as all distinguished strangers, upon arrival 
in the city, at once were taken to the Stock Yards, not 
to be slaughtered, it is true, but to view with salutary 
wonder the prodigious goings on, and to be crammed 
with statistics and oratory concerning how Chicago 


[ 307 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


feeds the world; and inasmuch as the reporter’s first 
query would be: ‘“‘How do you like Chicago?” Next, 
invariably: ‘Have you seen the Stock Yards?” and the 
third, possibly: ‘‘Have you viewed our beautiful system 
of parks and boulevards?” it may be assumed that in 
the cultural system prevailing in those days of long ago, 
the butcher stood at the peak of social eminence, while 
slightly below him were ranged the overlords of grain, 
lumber, and merchandising. Of manufacturing, ordi- 
narily so called, there was little, and the units were 
scattering and small. 

Then, presto, as it were, came a magic change. The 
city had become the center of a great radiating system 
of railways, the lake traffic changed from sail to steam. 
The population had grown to five hundred thousand 
by 1880, and reached a million in 1890; and this, from 
a pitiful 4,000 in 1837, at which time, by charter, the 
village became a city. Thus Chicago grew and flour- 
ished by virtue of pressure from without—the pres- 
sure of forest, field and plain, the mines of copper, iron 
and coal, and the human pressure of those who crowded 
in upon it from all sides seeking fortune. Thus the 
year 1880 may be set as the zero hour of an amazing 
expansion, for by that time the city had recovered 
from the shock of the panic of 1873. Manufactur- 
ing expanded with incredible rapidity, and the build- 
ing industry took on an organizing definition. With 
the advance in land values, and a growing sense of 
financial stability, investors awakened to opportunity, 
and speculators and promoters were at high feast. The 
tendency in commercial buildings was toward increas- 
ing stability, durability, and height, with ever better- 
ing equipment. ‘The telephone appeared, and electric 


[ 308 ] 


Pipe, ORIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


lighting systems. Iron columns and girders were now 
encased in fireproofing materials, hydraulic elevators 
came into established use, superseding those operated 
by steam or gas. Sanitary appliances kept pace with 
the rest. 

The essential scheme of construction, however, was 
that of solid masonry enclosing-and-supporting walls. 
The “Montauk”’ Block had reached the height of nine 
stories and was regarded with wonder. Then came the 
Auditorium Building with its immense mass of ten 
stories, its tower, weighing thirty million pounds, equiv- 
alent to twenty stories—a tower of solid masonry car- 
ried on a “floating” foundation; a great raft 67 by 
100 feet. Meanwhile Burnham and Root had pre- 
pared plans for a 16-story solid masonry office build- 
ing to be called the ““Monadnock.”’ As this was to be a 
big jump from nine stories, construction was postponed 
until it should be seen whether or not the Auditorium 
Tower would go to China of its own free will. The 
great tower, however, politely declined to go to China, 
or rudely rack the main building, because it had been 
trained by its architects concerning the etiquette of the 
situation, and, like a good and gentle tower, quietly 
responded to a manipulation of pig iron within its base. 
Then the ‘Monadnock”’ went ahead; an amazing cliff 
of brickwork, rising sheer and stark, with a subtlety 
of line and surface, a direct singleness of purpose, that 
gave one the thrill of romance. It was the first and 
last word of its kind; a great word in its day, but its 
day vanished almost over night, leaving it to stand as a 
symbol, as a solitary monument, marking the high tide 
of masonry construction as applied to commercial 
structures. 


[ 309 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


The Bessemer process of making “mild” steel had 
for some time been in operation in the Pennsylvania 
mills, but the output had been limited to steel rails; 
structural shapes were still rolled out of iron. The 
Bessemer process itself was revolutionary, and the 
story of its early trials and tribulations, its ultimate 
success, form a.special chapter in the bible of modern 
industry. 

Now in the process of things we have called a flow, 
and which is frequently spoken of as evolution—a word 
fast losing its significance—the tall commercial build- 
ing arose from the pressure of land values, the land 
values from pressure of population, the pressure of 
population from external pressure, as has been said. 
But an office building could not rise above stairway 
height without a means of vertical transportation. 
Thus pressure was brought on the brain of the me- 
chanical engineer whose creative imagination and in- 
dustry brought forth the passenger elevator, which 
when fairly developed as to safety, speed and control, 
removed the limit from the number of stories. But 
it was inherent in the nature of masonry construction, 
in its turn to fix a new limit of height, as its ever 
thickening walls ate up ground and floor space of ever 
increasing value, as the pressure of population rapidly 
increased. 

Meanwhile the use of concrete in heavy construc- 
tion was spreading, and the application of railroad 
iron to distribute concentrated loads on the founda- 
tions, the character of which became thereby radically 
changed from pyramids to flat affairs, thus liberating 
basement space; but this added basement space was 
of comparatively little value owing to deficiency in 


[ 310 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


headroom due to the shallowness of the street sewers. 
Then joined in the flow an invention of English origin, 
an automatic pneumatic ejector, which rendered base- 
ment depths independent of sewer levels. But to get 
full value from this appliance, foundations would have 
to be carried much deeper, in new buildings. With 
heavy walls and gravity retaining walls, the operation 
would be hazardous and of doubtful value. It be- 
came evident that the very tall masonry office build- 
ing was in its nature economically unfit as ground val- 
ues steadily rose. Not only did its thick walls entail 
loss of space and therefore revenue, but its unavoid- 
ably small window openings could not furnish the 
proper and desirable ratio of glass area to rentable 
floor area. 

Thus arose a crisis, a seeming impasse. What was 
to do? Architects made attempts at solutions by car- 
rying the outer spans of floor loads on cast columns next 
to the masonry piers, but this method was of small 
avail, and of limited application as to height. The 
attempts, moreover, did not rest on any basic principle, 
therefore the squabblings as to priority are so much 
pifle. The problem of the tall office building had not 
been solved, because the solution had not been sought 
within the problem itself—within its inherent nature. 
And it may here be remarked after years of observa- 
tion, that the truth most difficult to grasp, especially 
by the intellectuals, is this truth: That every problem 
of whatsoever name or nature, contains and suggests 
its own solution; and, the solution reached, it is in- 
variably found to be simple in nature, basic, and clearly 
allied to common sense. ‘This is what Monsieur Clopet 
really meant when he said to Louis in his Paris stu- 


fits 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


dent days: ‘‘Our demonstrations will be such as to 
admit of no exception.”” Monsieur Clopet carried the 
principle no further than his mathematics, but Louis 
saw in a flash the immensity and minuteness of its 
application, and what a world of research lay before 
him; for with the passing of the flash he saw dimly as 
through a veil, and it needed long years for the vision 
to reclarify and find its formula. 

As a rule, inventions—which are truly solutions— 
are not arrived at quickly. “They may seem to appear 
suddenly, but the groundwork has usually been long in 
preparing. It is of the essence of this philosophy that 
man’s needs are balanced by his powers. ‘That as the 
needs increase the powers increase—that is one reason 
why they are herein called powers. 

So in this instance, the Chicago activity in erecting 
high buildings finally attracted the attention of the 
local sales managers of Eastern rolling mills; and their 
engineers were set at work. The mills for some time 
past had been rolling those structural shapes that had 
long been in use in bridge work. Their own ground 
work thus was prepared. It was a matter of vision in 
salesmanship based upon engineering imagination and 
technique. Thus the idea of a steel frame which should 
carry all the load was tentatively presented to Chi- 
cago architects. 

The passion to sell is the impelling power in Ameri- 
can life. Manufacturing is subsidiary and adventi- 
tious. But selling must be based on a semblance of 
service—the satisfaction of a need. ‘The need was 
there, the capacity to satisfy was there, but contact 
was not there. ‘Then came the flash of imagination 
which saw the single thing. The trick was turned; 


[312] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


and there swiftly came into being something new under 
the sun. For the true steel-frame structure stands 
unique in the flowing of man and his works; a brilliant 
material example of man’s capacity to satisfy his needs 
through the exercise of his natural powers. The tall 
steel-frame structure may have its aspects of benef- 
icence; but so long as a man may say: “I shall do as 
I please with my own,”’ it presents opposite aspects of 
social menace and danger. For such is the complexity, 
the complication, the intricacy of modern feudal so- 
ciety; such is its neurasthenia, its hyperesthesia, its pre- 
carious instability, that not a move may be made in 
any one of its manifold activities, according to its code, 
without creating risk and danger in its wake; as will 
be, further on, elaborated. 

The architects of Chicago welcomed the steel frame 
and did something with it. ‘The architects of the East 
were appalled by it and could make no contribution to 
it. In fact, the tall office buildings fronting the narrow 
streets and lanes of lower New York were provin- 
cialisms, gross departures from the law of common 
sense. For the tall office building loses its validity 
when the surroundings are uncongenial to its nature; 
and when such buildings are crowded together upon 
narrow streets or lanes they become mutually destruc- 
tive. ‘The social significance of the tall building is in 
finality its most important phase. In and by itself, con- 
sidered solus so to speak, the lofty steel frame makes 
a powerful appeal to the architectural imagination 
where there is any. Where imagination is absent and 
its place usurped by timid pedantry the case is hope- 
less. The appeal and the inspiration lie, of course, in 
the element of loftiness, in the suggestion of slenderness 


Poise] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


and aspiration, the soaring quality as of a thing rising 
from the earth as a unitary utterance, Dionysian in 
beauty. The failure to perceive this simple truth has 
resulted in a throng of monstrosities, snobbish and 
maudlin or brashly insolent and thick lipped in speech; 
in either case a defamation and denial of man’s finest 
powers. 

In Chicago the tall office building would seem to 
have arisen spontaneously, in response to favoring 
physical conditions, and the economic pressure as then 
sanctified, combined with the daring of promoters. 

The construction and mechanical equipment soon de- 
veloped into engineering triumphs. Architects, with 
a considerable measure of success, undertook to give a 
commensurate external treatment. The art of design 
in Chicago had begun to take on a recognizable char- 
acter of its own. The future looked bright. The flag 
was in the breeze. Yet a small white cloud no bigger 
than a man’s hand was soon to appear above the hori- 
zon. ‘The name of this cloud was eighteen hundred 
and ninety-three. Following the little white cloud was 
a dark dim cloud, more like a fog. The name of the 
second cloud was Baring Brothers. 

During this period there was well under way the 
formation of mergers, combinations and trusts in the 
industrial world. The only architect in Chicago to 
catch the significance of this movement was Daniel 
Burnham, for in its tendency toward bigness, organi- 
zation, delegation, and intense commercialism, he 
sensed the reciprocal workings of his own mind. 

In the turmoil of this immense movement railroads 
were scuttled and reorganized, speculation became 
rampant, credit was leaving terra firma, forests were 


[ 314 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


slaughtered, farmers were steadily pushing westward, 
and into the Dakotas; immense mineral wealth had 
been unearthed in Colorado, South Dakota, Northern 
Wisconsin, Peninsular Michigan, the Mesaba Range in 
Minnesota. The ambitious trader sought to corner 
markets. ‘The “corner”? had become an ideal, a holy 
grail. Monopoly was in the air. Wall Street was a 
seething cauldron. The populace looked on, with 
open-mouthed amazement and approval, at the mighty 
men who wrought these wonders; called them Captains 
of Industry, Kings of this, Barons of that, Merchant 
Princes, Railroad Magnates, Wizards of Finance, or, 
as Burnham said one day to Louis: “Think of a man 
like Morgan, who can take a man like Cassatt in the 
palm of his hand and set him on the throne of the 
Pennsylvania!’’ And thus, in its way, the populace 
sang hymns to its heroes. 

The people rejoiced. Each individual rejoiced in 
envious admiration, and all rejoiced in the thought 
that these great men, these mighty men, had, with 
few and negligible exceptions, risen from the ranks 
of the common people: That this one began as a tele- 
graph operator at a lonely way-station, and this one 
was boss of a section gang on such and such a rail- 
road; another started in life as a brakeman; that one 
was clerk in a country store; this one came to our 
hospitable shores as a penniless immigrant; that one 
was a farmer boy; and their hymn arose and rang 
shimmering as a pean to their mighty ones, and their 
cry went up to their God, even as a mighty anthem, 
lifting up its head to proclaim to all the world that 
this, their Country, was vastly more than the land of 
the free and the home of the brave; it was the noble 


[ 315] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


land of equal opportunity for all; the true democracy 
for which mankind has been waiting through the cen- 
turies in blood and tears, in hope deferred. This, they 
cried, as one voice, is the Hospitable Land that wel- 
comes the stranger at its gates. This is the great De- 
mocracy where all men are equal and free. All this 
they sang gladly as they moved up the runways. 

Thus the Land was stirring and quivering in im- 
pulses, wave upon wave. The stream of immigration 
was enormous, spreading over vast areas, burrowing in 
the mines, or clinging to the cities. Chicago had passed 
St. Louis in population and was proud. Its system of 
building had become known as the “‘Chicago Construc- 
tion.” It was pushing its structures higher and higher, 
until the Masonic Temple by John Root had raised its 
head far into the air, and the word ‘‘skyscraper’”’ came 
into use. Chicago was booming. It had become a 
powerful magnet. Its people had one dream in com- 
mon: That their city should become the world’s me- 
tropolis. There was great enthusiasm and public spirit. 
So things stood, in the years 1890, 1891 and 1892. 
John Root had said to Louis: “You take your art too 
seriously.’ Burnham had said to Louis: “It is not 
good policy to go much above the general level of in- 
telligence.”” Burnham had also said: “See! Louis, how 
beautiful the moon is, now, overhead, how tender. 
Something in her beauty suggests tears to me.” 

And Chicago rolled on and roared by day and night 
except only in its stillest hours toward dawn. ‘There 
seemed to reside in its dreams before the dawn during 
these years something not wholly material, something 
in the underlying thoughts of men that aspired to reach 
above the general level of intelligence and the raucous 


[ 316 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


hue and cry. At least Louis thought so. ‘Then, as 
now, was the great Lake with its far horizon, the 
sweeping curve of its southern shore, its many moods, 
which every day he viewed from his tower windows. 
And there was the thought, the seeming presence of the 
prairies and the far-flung hinterland. In such momen- 
tary trance his childhood would return to him with its 
vivid dream of power, a dream which had now grown 
to encompass the world; from such reverie he would 
perchance awaken to some gossip of Adler, standing 
by, concerning the inside story of some of the city’s 
great men, all of which was grist for Louis’s mill, for 
Adler was quite literal when he told these anecdotes, 
and Louis listened keenly to them, and learned. The 
two frequently lunched together. Shop talk was taboo. 
But they did not talk about the coming World’s Fair, 
as authorized by Act of Congress in 1890. It was 
deemed fitting by all the people that the four hundredth 
anniversary of the discovery of America by one 
Christopher Columbus, should be celebrated by a great 
World Exposition, which should spaciously reveal to 
the last word the cultural status of the peoples of the 
Earth; and that the setting for such display should be 
one of splendor, worthy of its subject. 

Chicago was ripe and ready for such an undertaking. 
It had the required enthusiasm and the will. It won 
out in a contest between the cities. The prize was 
now in hand. It was to be the city’s crowning glory. 
A superb site on the lake adjoined the southern section 
of the city. ‘his site was so to be transformed and 
embellished by the magic of American prowess, par- 
ticularly in its architectural aspects, as to set forth the 
genius of the land in that great creative art. It was 


[ 317 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


to be a dream city, where one might revel in beauty. 
It was to be called The White City by the Lake. 

Now arose above the horizon the smal] white cloud. 
It came from eastward. It came borne upon the winds 
of predestination. Who could fancy that a harmless 
white cloud might cast a white shadow? Who could 
forecast the shape of that shadow? It was here that 
one man’s unbalanced mind spread a gauze-like pall of 
fatality. “That one man’s unconscious stupor in big- 
ness, and in the droll phantasy of hero-worship, did 
his best and his worst, according to his lights, which 
were dim except the one projector by the harsh light 
of which he saw all things illuminated and grown bom- 
bastically big in Chauvinistic outlines. Here was to 
be the test of American culture, and here it failed. 
Dreamers may dream; but of what avail the dream if 
it be but a dream of misinterpretation? If the dream, 
in such a case, rise not in vision far above the general 
level of intelligence, and prophesy through the medium 
of clear thinking, true interpretation—why dream at 
all? Why not rest content as children of Barnum, 
easy in the faith that one of “them” is born every 
minute. Such in effect was the method adopted in 
practice while the phrase-makers tossed their slogans 
to and fro. 

At the beginning it was tentatively assumed that the 
firm of Burnham & Root might undertake the work 
in its entirety. The idea was sound in principle—one 
hand, one great work—a superb revelation of Ameri- 
ca’s potency—an oration, a portrayal, to arouse that 
which was hidden, to call it forth into the light. But 
the work of ten years cannot be done in two. It would 
require two years to grasp and analyze the problem 


[ 318 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


and effect a synthesis. Less than three years were 
available for the initiation and completion of the work 
entire, ready for the installation of exhibits. The idea 
was in consequence dismissed. As a matter of fact 
there was not an architect in the land equal to the 
undertaking. No veteran mind seasoned to the strategy 
and tactics involved in a wholly successful issue. Other- 
wise there might have arisen a gorgeous Garden City, 
reflex of one mind, truly interpreting the aspirations 
and the heart’s desire of the many, every detail care- 
fully considered, every function given its due form, 
with the sense of humanity at its best, a suffusing at- 
mosphere; and within the Garden City might be built 
another city to remain and endure as a memorial, within 
the parkland by the blue waters, oriented toward the 
rising sun, a token of a covenant of things to be, a 
symbol of the city’s basic significance as offspring of 
the prairie, the lake and the portage. 

But “‘hustle’’ was the word. Make it big, make it 
stunning, knock ’em down! ‘The cry was well meant 
as things go. 

So in the fall of 1890 John Root was officially 
appointed consulting architect, and Daniel Burnham, 
Chief of Construction. 

Later, with the kindly assistance of Edward T. Jef- 
ferey, Chairman of the Committee on Buildings and 
Grounds, Burnham selected five architects from the 
East and five from the West, ten in all. Burnham 
and Jefferey loved each other dearly. The thought of 
one was the thought of both, as it were—sometimes. 
Burnham had believed that he might best serve his 
country by placing all of the work exclusively with 
Eastern architects; solely, he averred, on account of 


[ 319 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


their surpassing culture. With exquisite delicacy and 
tact, Jefferey, at a meeting of the Committee, persuaded 
Daniel, come to Judgment, to add the Western men 
to the list of his nominations. 

A gathering of these architects took place in Febru- 
ary, 1891. After an examination of the site, which 
by this time was dreary enough in its state of raw 
upheaval, the company retired for active conference. 
John Root was not there. In faith he could not come. 
He had made his rendezvous the month before. Grace- 
land was now his home. Soon above him would be 
reared a Celtic cross. Louis missed him sadly. Who 
now would take up the foils he had dropped on his 
way, from hands that were once so strong? ‘There was 
none! The shadow of the white cloud had already 
fallen. 

The meeting came to order. Richard Hunt, acknowl- 
edged dean of his profession, in the chair, Louis Sulli- 
van acting as secretary. Burnham arose to make his 
address of welcome. He was not facile on his feet, 
but it soon became noticeable that he was progressively 
and grossly apologizing to the Eastern men for the 
presence of their benighted brethren of the West. 

Dick Hunt interrupted: ‘Hell, we haven’t come 
out here on a missionary expedition. Let’s get to 
work.” Everyone agreed. Burnham came out of his 
somnambulistic vagary and joined in. He was keen 
enough to understand that ‘Uncle Dick’’ had done him 
a needed favor. For Burnham learned slowly but 
surely, within the limits of his understanding. 

A layout was submitted to the Board as a basis for 
discussion. It was rearranged on two axes at right 
angles. ‘The buildings were disposed accordingly. By 


[ 320 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


an amicable arrangement each architect was given such 
building as he preferred, after consultation. The 
meeting then adjourned. 

The story of the building of the Fair is foreign to 
the purpose of this narrative, which is to deal with its 
more serious aspects, implications and results. Suffice 
it that Burnham performed in a masterful way, dis- 
playing remarkable executive capacity. He became 
open-minded, just, magnanimous. He did his great 
share. 

The work completed, the gates thrown open 1 May, 
1893, the crowds flowed in from every quarter, con- 
tinued to flow throughout a fair-weather summer and 
a serenely beautiful October. Then came the end. 
The gates were closed. 

These crowds were astonished. ‘They beheld what 
was for them an amazing revelation of the architec- 
tural art, of which previously they in comparison had 
known nothing. To them it was a veritable Apoca- 
lypse, a message inspired from on high. Upon it their 
imagination shaped new ideals. ‘They went away, 
spreading again over the land, returning to their homes, 
each one of them carrying in the soul the shadow of 
the white cloud, each of them permeated by the most 
subtle and slow-acting of poisons; an imperceptible 
miasm within the white shadow of a higher culture. A 
vast multitude, exposed, unprepared, they had not had 
time nor occasion to become immune to forms of so- 
phistication not their own, to a higher and more dexter- 
ously insidious plausibility. ‘Thus they departed Jjoy- 
ously, carriers of contagion, unaware that what they 
had beheld and believed to be truth was to prove, in 
historic fact, an appalling calamity. For what they 


[oaaad 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


saw was not at all what they believed they saw, but 
an imposition of the spurious upon their eyesight, a 
naked exhibitionism of charlatanry in the higher feudal 
and domineering culture, conjoined with expert sales- 
manship of the materials of decay. Adventitiously, to 
make the stage setting complete, it happened by way 
of apparent but unreal contrast that the structure rep- 
resenting the United States Government was of an 
incredible vulgarity, while the building at the peak of 
the north axis, stationed there as a symbol of “The 
Great State of Illinois’? matched it as a lewd exhibit 
of drooling imbecility and political debauchery. The 
distribution at the northern end of the grounds of many 
state and foreign headquarters relieved the sense of 
stark immensity. South of them, and placed on the 
border of a small lake, stood the Palace of the Arts, 
the most vitriolic of them all—the most impudently 
thievish. The landscape work, in its genial distribution 
of lagoons, wooded islands, lawns, shrubbery and 
plantings, did much to soften an otherwise mechanical 
display; while far in the southeast corner, floating in 
a small lagoon or harbor, were replicas of the three 
caravels of Columbus, and on an adjacent artificial 
mound a representation of the Convent of La Rabida. 
Otherwhere there was no evidence of Columbus and his 
daring deed, his sufferings, and his melancholy end. 
No keynote, no dramatic setting forth of that deed 
which, recently, has aroused some discussion as to 
whether the discovery of America had proven to be a 
blessing or a curse to the world of mankind. 
Following the white cloud, even as a companion in 
iniquity, came the gray cloud. It overwhelmed the 
land with a pall of desolation. It dropped its blinding 


P3224 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


bolt. Its hurricane swept away the pyramided paper: 
structures of speculation. Its downpour washed away 
fancied gains; its raindrops, loaded with a lethal toxin, 
fell alike upon the unjust and the just, as in retribu- 
tion, demanding an atonement in human sacrifice. The 
thunder ceased to roll, the rain became a mist and 
cleared, the storm subsided, all was still. Overhead 
hung the gray cloud of panic from horizon to horizon. 
Slowly it thinned, in time it became translucent, van- 
ished, revealing the white cloud which, in platoons, 
unseen, had overrun the blue. Niow again shone the 
sun. ‘Prosperity’ awakened from its torpor, rubbed 
its eyes and prepared for further follies. 

It is said that history repeats itself. This is not so. 
What is mistaken for repetition is the recurrent feudal 
rhythm of exaltation and despair. Its progressive 
wavelike movement in action is implicit in the feudal 
thought, and inevitable, and so long as the feudal 
thought holds dominion in the minds of men, just so 
long and no longer will calamity follow upon the ap- 
pearance of prosperity. The end is insanity, the 
crumbling and the passing of the race, for life is ever 
saying to Man: “If you wish to be destroyed I will 
destroy you.” he white cloud is the feudal idea. 
The gray cloud, the nemesis contained within that idea. 
The feudal idea is dual, it holds to the concept of good 
and evil. The democratic idea is single, integral. It 
holds to the good alone. Its faith lies in the benefi- 
cence of its power, in its direct appeal to life. Its 
vision reveals an inspiring vista of accomplishment. 
Its common sense recognizes man as by nature sound 
to the core, and kindly. It as clearly sees, in the feu- 
dal scheme, a continuous warfare—as well in so-called 


[ 323 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


times of peace as in sanguinary battle. It views all 
this as lunacy, for its own word is kindness. It bases 
its faith upon the heart in preference to the intellect, 
though knowing well the power of the latter when 
controlled. It knows that the intellect, alone, runs 
amuck, and performs unspeakable cruelties; that the 
heart alone is divine. For it is the heart that welcomes 
Life and would cherish it, would shield it against the 
cannibalism of the intellect. 

From the height of its Columbian Ecstacy, Chicago 
drooped and subsided with the rest, in a common sick- 
ness, the nausea of overstimulation. This in turn 
passed, toward the end of the decade, and the old 
game began again with intensified fury, to come to a 
sudden halt in 1907. There are those who say this 
panic was artificial and deliberate, that the battle of 
the saber-toothed tigers and the mastodons was on. 

Meanwhile the virus of the World’s Fair, after a 
period of incubation in the architectural profession and 
in the population at large, especially the influential, 
began to show unmistakable signs of the nature of 
the contagion. ‘There came a violent outbreak of the 
Classic and the Renaissance in the East, which slowly 
spread westward, contaminating all that it touched, 
both at its source and outward. The selling campaign 
of the bogus antique was remarkably well managed 
through skillful publicity and propaganda, by those 
who were first to see its commercial possibilities. The 
market was ripe, made so through the hebetude of the 
populace, big business men, and eminent educators 
alike. By the time the market had been saturated, all 
sense of reality was gone. In its place had come deep- 
seated illusions, hallucinations, absence of pupillary re- 


[ 324 ] 


Pare aU rOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


action to light, absence of knee-reaction—symptoms all 
of progressive cerebral meningitis: The blanketing of 
the brain. ‘Thus Architecture died in the land of the 
free and the home of the brave,—in a land declaring 
its fervid democracy, its inventiveness, its resourceful- 
ness, its unique daring, enterprise and progress. Thus 
did the virus of a culture, snobbish and alien to the 
land, perform its work of disintegration; and thus ever 
works the pallid academic mind, denying the real, ex- 
alting the fictitious and the false, incapable of adjust- 
ing itself to the flow of living things, to the reality 
and the pathos of man’s follies, to the valiant hope that 
ever causes him to aspire, and again to aspire; that 
never lifts a hand in aid because it cannot; that turns 
its back upon man because that is its tradition; a cul- 
ture lost in ghostly mésalliance with abstractions, when 
what the world needs is courage, common sense and 
human sympathy, and a moral standard that is plain, 
valid and livable. 

The damage wrought by the World’s Fair will last 
for half a century from its date, if not longer. It has 
penetrated deep into the constitution of the American 
mind, effecting there lesions significant of dementia. 

Meanwhile the architectural generation immediately 
succeeding the Classic and Renaissance merchants, are 
seeking to secure a special immunity from the inroads 
of common sense, through a process of vaccination with 
the lymph of every known European style, period and 
accident, and to this all-around process, when it breaks 
out, is to be added the benediction of good taste. Thus 
we have now the abounding freedom of Eclecticism, 
the winning smile of taste, but no architecture. For 
Architecture, be it known, is dead. Let us therefore 


[ 325 ] 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPAY OF AN IDEA 


lightly dance upon its grave, strewing roses as we glide. 
Indeed let us gather, in procession, in the night, in the 
rain, and make soulful, fluent, epicene orations to the 
living dead we neuters eulogize. 

Surely the profession has made marvelous improve- 
ments in trade methods, over the old-fashioned way. 
There is now a dazzling display of merchandise, all 
imported, excepting to be sure our own cherished colo- 
nial, which maintains our Anglo-Saxon tradition in its 
purity. We have Tudor for colleges and residences; 
Roman for banks, and railway stations and libraries,— 
or Greek if you like—some customers prefer the lonic 
to the Doric. We have French, English and’ Italian 
Gothic, Classic and Renaissance for churches. In fact 
we are prepared to satisfy, in any manner of taste. 
Residences we offer in Italian or Louis Quinze. We 
make a small charge for alterations and adaptations. 
Our service we guarantee as exceptional and exclusive. 
Our importations are direct. We have our own agents 
abroad. We maintain also a commercial department, 
in which a selective taste is not so necessary. Its prov- 
ince is to solve engineering problems of all kinds, 
matters of cost, income, maintenance, taxes, renewals, 
depreciation, obsolescence; and as well maintenance of 
contact, sales pressure, sales resistance, flotations, and 
further matters of the sort. We maintain also an in- 
dustrial department in which leading critics unite in 
saying we have made most significant departures in 
design. These structures however, are apart from our 
fashionable trade. Our business is founded and main- 
tained on an ideal service, and a part of that service 
we believe to consist in an elevation of the public taste, 
a setting forth of the true standards of design, in pure 


[ 326 } 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


form, a system of education by example, the gradual 
formation of a background of culture for the masses. 
In this endeavor we have the generous support of the 
architectural schools, of the colleges and universities, 
of men of wealth, and of those whose perspicacity has 
carried them to the pinnacle of eminence in finance, 
industry, commerce, education and _ statesmanship. 
Therefore we feel that we are in thorough accord with 
the spirit of our times as expressed in its activities, in 
its broad democratic tolerance, and its ever-youthful 
enthusiasms. It is this sense of solidity, solidarity and 
security that makes us bold, inspires us with the high 
courage to continue in our self-imposed task. We look 
for our reward solely in the conviction of duty done; 
our profound belief that we are preparing the way for 
the coming generation through the power of our ex- 
ample, our counsel and our teachings, to the end that 
they may express, better than we ourselves have done, 
the deep, the sincere, the wholesome aspirations of 
our people and of our land, as yet not fully articulated 
by the higher culture, in spite of our best efforts to- 
ward that end. This task we are quite aware we must 
eventually leave to the young who are crowding upon 
us, and we wish them joy in their great adventure when 
we relinquish our all. 

In the better aspects of eclecticism and taste, that is 
to say, in those aspects which reveal a certain depth of 
artistic feeling and a physical sense of materials, rather 
than mere scene-painting or archeology, however 
clever, there is to be discovered a hope and a forecast. 
For it is within the range of possibilities, one may even 
go so far as to say probabilities, that out of the very 
richness and multiplicity of the architectural phenom- 


[ 3274 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


ena called ‘‘styles’’ there may arise within the archi- 
tectural mind a perception growing slowly, perhaps 
suddenly, into clearness, that architecture in its mate- 
rial nature and in its animating essence is a plastic art. 
This truth, so long resisted because of the limited 
intellectual boundaries and deficient sympathy of aca- 
demic training, must eventually prevail because founded 
upon a culture of common sense and human recogni- 
tion. Its power is as gentle and as irresistible as that 
of the Springtime—to which it may be likened, or to 
sunrise following the night and its stars, and herein 
lies beneath the surface and even on the surface the 
inspiration of our High Optimism, with its unceasing 
faith in man as free spirit! as creator, possessed of a 
physical sense indistinguishable from the spiritual, and 
of innate plastic powers whose fecundity and benef- 
cence surpass our present scope of imagination. Dog- 
ma and rule of the dead are passing. The Great 
Modern Inversion, for which the world of mankind 
has been preparing purblindly through the ages, is now 
under way in its world-wide awakening. The thought 
of the multitudes is changing, withdrawing its consent, 
its acquiescence; the dream of the multitudes is meta- 
morphosing, philosophy is becoming human and im- 
mersing itself in the flow of life; science is pushing the 
spectres back into the invisible whence they came. 
The world is in travail, smeared with blood, amid the 
glint of bayonets; the feudal idea has reached the pitch 
of its insanity, yet by the way of compensation the veils 
are lifting rapidly, all the veils of hypocrisy and sinis- 
ter intent, all the veils of plausible, insidious speech, 
of propaganda, of perfidy, of betrayal. It requires 
courage to remain steadfast in faith in the presence of 


[ 328 | 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


such pollution. Yet it is precisely such courage that 
marks man in his power as free spirit. For beneath 
this corruption the enlightened one perceives the ever- 
lasting aspirations of mankind, the ever-yearning heart 
in its search for kindness, peace and a safe anchorage 
within its world, and to such, the compassionate one 
gives out words of encouragement and prophecy, even 
as the gray clouds hover from horizon to horizon; a 
prophecy that this cloud shall melt away, and reveal 
aloft a shining white cloud, in the blue, announcing 
the new man and the new culture of faith. 

It seems fitting, therefore, that this work should 
close with the same child-dream in which it began. 
The dream of a beauteous, beneficent power, which 
came when, winter past, the orchards burst into bloom, 
and the song of spring was heard in the land. 

That dream has never ceased. That faith has never 
wearied. With the passage of the years, the dream, 
the faith, ever expanding in power, became all-inclu- 
sive; and with the progress of the dream and the faith, 
there emerged in confirmation a vague outline, grow- 
ing year after year more luminous and clear. When 
the golden hour tolled, all mists departed, and there 
shone forth as in a vision, the reality of MAN, as Free 
Spirit, as Creator, as Container of illimitable powers, 
for the joy and the peace of mankind. 

It was this unseen nearby presence, messenger of 
Life in its flowing, that sang its song of spring to the 
child, and the child heard what no one heard; the child 
saw what no one saw. 

It is questionable how much of social value one who 
has had access to the treasures of the past, access to the 


a29 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA 


best and the worst in the thought of his day, may leave 
behind him in his fruitage, as a quantum—an IDEA. 

This narrator agrees, in such connection, that the 
initial instinct of the child, as set forth, is the basis of 
all fruitful ideas, and that the growth in power of 
such ideas is in itself a work of instinct; that, if it has 
been convincingly shown that instinct is primary and 
intellect secondary in all the great works of man, this 
portrayal is justified. 

It is further the belief of this narrator, in this con- 
nection, that if he has succeeded in setting clearly forth 
the basic fruitful power of the IDEA permeating and 
dominating this narrative of a life-experience, physical 
and spiritual, he has done well in‘thus making a record 
in words to be pondered in the heart. 


(THE ENp) 


Copyright 1922 
Copyright 1924 


PRESS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS, INC. 








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